Daily Times

BRUSSELS: Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem insisted Thursday that his mandate runs until 2018, despite the fact he could lose his job as Netherlands finance minister after his party’s election flop. The fate of the current president of the finance ministers of the 19-country eurozone is being closely watched across Europe amid tense negotiations on Greece’s bailout. “A new coalition needs to be formed but my Eurogroup mandate runs until January 2018,” Dijsselbloem was quoted as saying by his spokesman Michel Reijns. There are currently no precise rules governing the position of Eurogroup president, meaning that in theory there is nothing to stop him holding the position even if he loses his job as Dutch finance minister, European sources said. Dijsselbloem’s Labour Party — the sole partner in Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s outgoing coalition — won just nine seats compared with the 38 it won at in 2012, leaving his domestic job at risk. It was a note of uncertainty on a night that was otherwise largely welcomed across Europe after Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders was easily defeated by Rutte. “A very disappointing result for my PvdA. But the vast majority of voters rejected the extreme populists. Which gives hope for the future,” Dijsselbloem tweeted. Dijsselbloem has led the Eurogroup since January 2013, shepherding it through the Cyprus debt crisis of that year and the deal to prevent Greece’s near-exit from the eurozone in 2015. His fellow ministers renewed his current two-and-a-half-year mandate in July 2015. The EU’s Lisbon Treaty simply says that ministers from the eurozone “must elect a president for two and a half years by a majority of member states.” The tradition has been to elect a finance minister as president, with Dijsselbloem’s predecessor being Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker, who was simultaneously prime minister and finance minister. Juncker now heads the European Commission. Spanish Finance Minister Luis de Guindos was Dijsselbloem’s main rival when his mandate was renewed in 2015, while Slovakia’s Peter Kazimir has also been touted as a possible replacement.