BERLIN (Reuters) – A leader of Germany’s Free Democrats (FDP), Chancellor Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partners, said on Friday he did not back creating a full-time president of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers to improve coordination.
“We have enough posts. What we need are problem solvers,” Rainer Bruederle, a former economy minister who is heading the FDP’s campaign for September’s election, told German radio.
Merkel and French President Francois Hollande aired the idea at a joint news conference on Thursday in Paris, saying it could help give the currency bloc tighter economic coordination.
The Eurogroup is currently chaired by one of the bloc’s finance ministers, with the Netherlands’ Jeroen Dijsselbloem fulfilling this role at present.
(Reporting by Thomas Seythal- Writing by Stephen Brown- Editing by Michelle Martin)