The leaders of the 17 members of the eurozone appointed Yves Mersch, the head of Luxembourg’s central bank, to the executive board of the European Central Bank, provoking an outcry from MEPs. 

The decision was made on Thursday (22 November), the first day of the European Council, despite formal opposition from the Parliament, which rejected his appointment because the ECB’s executive board will now be all-male until 2018 at the earliest.

Click Here: Putters

Sharon Bowles, who chairs the Parliament’s influential economic and monetary affairs committee, which voted against the move last month, said that the appointment “undermines and discredits” work to make the European Union more democratically accountable. The British Liberal MEP said that Mersch did not have a “democratically established mandate”.

“The EU’s heads of state have sent a clear signal of what their idea of a democratic process is: a tool to be upheld in form and discarded when its truths are inconvenient,” Bowles said. “Citizens across the EU have been astounded to discover the lack of gender diversity in the ECB, and, indeed, in other EU organisations.”

The appointment of Mersch, who is considered an economic hardliner, was initially approved by leaders of eurozone member states at the European Council in June. But the Parliament’s opposition and a last-minute attempt to block the appointment by Spain – which will be without a representative on a fully constituted ECB board for the first time – delayed Mersch taking up the position.

The seat has been vacant since Spain’s José Manuel González-Páramo left at the end of his mandate on 31 March. When the vacancy arose earlier this year, Spain had argued against Mersch, proposing Spanish ECB lawyer Antonio Sáinz de Vicuña for the role.