Carlos Body affirms that Spain wants a position on the executive committee of the ECB

Spain is working to maintain a position within the executive committee of the European Central Bank (ECB) that balances the body and corresponds to the role that the country is playing in European economic growth, the Spanish Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, declared this Wednesday.

In an interview with EFE in Toronto, where Body has participated in the Spain-Canada Business Forum, the minister declared that the Spanish authorities hope, “specifically in the European Central Bank, to maintain a position within the executive commission, because Spain has to continue, in this case, having a relevant role, and more so with the role it is playing right now, beyond being the Bank’s fourth shareholder, of course.”

And he stressed that in the next two years “Several positions are open on the ECB’s governing counciland there we must consider all of them together.

“There has to be a balance in that committee. And from Spain, we are, of course, going to work to continue having relevant representation, just as we do in general in the institutions, but specifically in the ECB, because we believe that Spain has to continue, not only by weight, but also by the role it is playing right now in the recovery and growth, having a relevant position,” he said.

Currently, the vice president of the ECB is the Spanish Luis de Guindos whose mandate ends on May 31, 2026.

Body has also remembered that Spain already has “an important weight” in the European economic architecture, both through Teresa Ribera, vice president of the European Commission, and with Nadia Calviño, president of the European Investment Bank.

Regarding the Eurogroup, whose presidency is disputed by the Greek Kyriakos Pierrakakis and the Belgian Vincent Van Peteghem, he stated that Spain considers that “it has to be a dynamic element in the economic discussion and in carrying out all these reforms that we need in Europe.”

Body, who at one point was considered a candidate for the presidency of the Eurogroup, has added that both Pierrakakis as Van Peteghem “can do an excellent job” in the materialization of the reforms and that whoever is elected will have the help of Spain.

“We are already doing it, for example, with that competitiveness laboratory that we have put on the table in a coalition of volunteers, which is also one of Mario Draghi’s requests,” he explained in reference to the European Competitiveness Laboratory, which the Corps itself proposed.