EUROZONE: Greece's Finance Minister Elected Eurogroup President

Greece's Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis has been elected to serve as the next president of the Eurogroup following a vote among eurozone finance ministers. Pierrakakis defeated Belgian Deputy PM and Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem in the two-horse race to succeed the long-serving Paschal Donohoe of Ireland, who is standing down from the Eurogroup presidency and his role in Irish politics to take up a job at the World Bank. 

• Pierrakakis will take up his role on 12 December, and serve for a 2.5-year term that can be renewed. The election of a minister from Greece, once the focus of so much political and financial market pressure during the eurozone debt crisis, will not go unnoticed and will be viewed as the political endorsement of the fiscal actions taken in Athens over the past decade.
• Indeed, German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil publicly stated his support for his Greek counterpart Pierrakakis before the vote, a scenario that would have been unthinkable when their respective ministries were headed by Wolfgang Schauble and Yanis Varoufakis 10 years ago.
• During the crisis, the Eurogroup became a key forum for informal discussions between finance ministries that resulted in major policy decisions. However, as VRT News writes, "Today, the Eurogroup's influence is considerably less than it was during and shortly after the crisis...The Eurogroup primarily shapes the eurozone's financial policy in the background. The president is responsible for steering the meetings smoothly, keeping informed, and ensuring compromises are reached. Truly fundamental decisions with significant impact aren't made immediately."