IMF European leadership hopefuls narrowed to three

The EU has narrowed down its field of candidates to replace Christine Lagarde at the IMF to three names as European negotiators rush to secure a consensus on who should be the next managing director of the fund.

On Friday, the French finance ministry, which is leading negotiations on behalf of the EU, shortlisted five European names for the job but failed to reach a consensus on any candidate. Of the five, Mário Centeno, Portugal’s current eurogroup chair, and Nadia Calviño, Spain’s finance minister, have now been ruled out, according to two senior officials briefed by French negotiators.

That leaves Jeroen Dijsselbloem, former Dutch finance minister; Kristalina Georgieva, Bulgarian chief executive of the World Bank; and Olli Rehn, a former Finnish EU commissioner for the economy and current head of Finland’s central bank, still in the race.

FT