By Ed Frankl and Paul Hannon
Eurozone finance ministers on Monday nominated Croatia’s Boris Vujcic as the next vice president of the European Central Bank, the first step in an overhaul of the executive board as President Christine Lagarde prepares to step down next year.
The ECB’s vice president, who appears with the president at press conferences following rate decisions, focuses primarily on financial-stability issues, while also having a say in monetary policy.
Vujcic is governor of Croatia’s central bank. If backed by eurozone leaders and the ECB, he will succeed former Spanish finance minister Luis de Guindos, who leaves the position in May, having spent eight years in the role.
Ministers from the eurozone’s 21 members decided among six candidates for the position. The selection is the first of a series of new appointments to the ECB’s top six-person executive board, members of which serve for one eight-year term.
President Lagarde, Chief Economist Philip Lane, and German policymaker Isabel Schnabel all step down next year.
ECB executive board members are required to be from one of the eurozone countries. Policymakers from richer and larger members have dominated since the first board was put together in 1998.
In a speech earlier in January, De Guindos said the global economy is facing heightened uncertainty and that investors are too complacent about geopolitical risks.
An intensifying trade war, doubts about the profitability of investments in artificial intelligence or increased doubts about U.S. fiscal credibility could trigger big shifts in sentiment, he said.
“The shift to a new paradigm–one where rule of law principles are challenged–reflects profound global uncertainties that are likely to persist,” he added.
Those uncertainties are holding back investment and cutting consumers’ appetite to spend, keeping a lid on economic growth in the eurozone. However, the eurozone’s economy has performed relatively resiliently against U.S. tariffs and geopolitical shifts in 2025, with gross domestic product growth expected to be 1.4%, from 0.9% in 2024, the ECB said in December.
With inflation slightly below the ECB’s 2.0% target in December, investors expect the bank to keep its monetary policy unchanged throughout this year. It has kept its key rate at 2.0% since June.
Write to Paul Hannon at paul.hannon@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-19-26 1427ET