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You can’t buy experience.
That’s one of the main arguments that Luxembourg’s Pierre Gramegna will present to his 18 fellow finance ministers Thursday as he bids to become the next Eurogroup president.
Gramegna has been his country’s finance minister since December 2013, a membership in the Eurogroup matched only by Malta’s Edward Scicluna. Those years have been witness to sovereign debt crises including the Greek bailout drama that pushed the currency union to the brink.
“My advantage is obviously to have been in this boat for six and a half years,” Gramegna said in an interview at his ministry in the historic center of the Grand Duchy’s capital. “I know all the files that are on the table today.”
He will hope that that experience — and his pitch to secure a vital decision-making role for the Eurogroup in the EU’s €750 billion recovery blueprint — will be enough to win him the chairmanship.
Gramegna also has experience in another category: campaigning for the job. Two and a half years ago, he lost out to Mário Centeno, who steps down July 12 with an eye on Portugal’s central bank.
Now Gramegna, who’s 62, faces stiff competition from Spain’s Nadia Calviño and Paschal Donohoe of Ireland. Each country gets one vote. The first candidate to 10 wins.
The winner will be responsible for setting the eurozone’s financial policy agenda for the next 30 months at a time of great uncertainty. The coronavirus has ravaged the economy after governments locked down business for months to stem the outbreak....