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03 June 2003

EZA 542 - ECB Monetary




Trichet to be surer hand at ECB helm (1)
The appointment of Banque de France Governor Jean-Claude Trichet as president of the European Central Bank, approved at the European Summit in Porto Carras at the weekend, was always the most likely outcome for President Wim Duisenberg's succession. For a Frenchman to be appointed to an eight-year mandate to represent Europe in global monetary policy was a much too important position to jeopardise in a specious judicial dispute. In any case, the Crédit Lyonnais investigation was in essence little more than a settling of old scores between the right and left in France, with roots in still opaque 1980s political machinations under late president Francois Mitterrand. There was, in reality, little genuine justifiable culpability to be attributed at civil service level where Trichet operated in the early 1990s. As the ultimate, discrete public sector mandarin, Trichet will make little or no difference to European monetary policy for the foreseeable future, except at the margin - personnel appointements etc. He will be a much surer hand at the ECB helm but his natural inscrutability means communications is unlikely to become any clearer. The following is the first of a two-part profile.

SummaryAsset Conclusions: Trichet ECB appointment to bring surer touch to euro management; unlikely to institute much near term change in monetary policy

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© Graham Bishop

Documents associated with this article

EZA542.pdf


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