Pierre Gramegna, former Minister of Finance of Luxembourg;;
On Monday 19 September 2022, Luxembourg's Ministry of Finance announced that the candidacies of the former Minister of Finance, Pierre Gramegna, and that of the former Portuguese Minister of Finance, João Leão, for the post of Director General of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) have been withdrawn with mutual agreement in the interest of this institution, whose head office is in Luxembourg.
Following the informal consultations that have taken place over the last few months between the finance ministers of the euro area, it turned out that neither of the two candidates would manage to obtain the qualified majority of 80% of the votes, and this despite the fact that each of the candidates succeeded in gathering a large number of votes.
In order to avoid an impasse and so as not to further hinder the succession of Klaus Regling, the current general manager of the ESM, the two candidacies have thus been withdrawn from the race as of Monday. The President of the Eurogroup and Chairman of the Board of Governors of the ESM, Paschal Donohoe, will inform in due course of the further process.
