With less than two months to go until Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the head of the group of euro-area finance ministers, steps down, the race for who succeeds him is heating up, as France’s Bruno Le Maire, who was the favorite, is said to have second thoughts.
While no ministers have officially thrown their hats into the ring ahead of the December elections, some have already expressed interest or started lobbying their counterparts. Finding a successor to Dijsselbloem could prove hard, given the candidate needs to strike a fine balance both geographically and politically -- between North and South, East and West, big and small countries, and between conservatives, Social Democrats and Liberals.
