ECB Presidency Election - July / August 2022
-
The Kingdom of Spain proposes Luis de Guindos Jurado for the Presidency of the European Central Bank.
Mr. De Guindos is a Bachelor of Economics and Business at the Colegio Universitario de Estudios Financieros. De Guindos was once the Managing Partner of Advisors AB, secretary of the magazine "Business Information Spanish", and vocal advisor to the Secretary of State for Economy of Spain and Head of Technical Office of the General Secretariat of Commerce.
In late 1996, de Guindos was appointed General Director for Economic and Competitiveness. He has served on the board of Renfe between 1997 and 2000 and the Official Credit Institute from 2000 to 2002. In May 2000 was appointed Secretary in General for Economy, and State Industrial Holdings Company. He was Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in the last government led by José María Aznar. In this capacity, he was in charge of overseeing Spain's entry into the eurozone in 2002. In 2006, de Guindos was appointed director of a subsidiary bank in Spain, where he remained until the collapse and declaration of bankruptcy of the foreign company that owned the bank in 2008. Subsequently, de Guindos became responsible for the finance division of Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Finally, and in a largely ceremonial role, he was appointed as a professor of finance at the PwC and IE Financial Sector Center of IE Business School (Madrid), between 2010 and 2012, before joining as a minister. He was also a board member of Endesa SA, a Spanish power company.
From 2011, de Guindos worked for the board of Mare Nostrum Bank, which was formed in 2010 from a merger of savings banks, until he resigned to become part of the Rajoy government led by Mariano Rajoy in December of that year. After Rajoy resigned in 2015 from the Partido Popular's presidency, and Jesús Aguilar became President, De Guindos kept his position as Minister until July 2022.
In addition to this candidacy introduction, I would like to focus on the Reitzmic candidate for a minute: Cllr. Yahontov, your country has threatened Krexit after Jean-Claude Juncker won the Premier race, and they seem to be serious about it. Why should the Premier Commissioner consider the application of Reitzmag when your country is leaving soon? It would be like hiring an employee who's telling you he might quit in two weeks, absolutely pointless.
Donald Tusk
Councillor for Spain
The Kingdom of Spain
His Majesty the King, Felipe VI
President Alberto Núñez-Feijóo
Councillor and Council Speaker Donald Tusk -
The United Duchies proposes Dominic Scott who has significant experience in business and treasury positions.
Dominic Scott has served in the Duchies Central bank from 2000-2010 before which he worked at 7 Duchies Bank from 1988-2000 where he worked his way up to CEO. He was subsequently elected to the House of Commons and appointed Treasury Minister in the new government a role in which he has served since 2010 to present. He is known for his keynesian style of management balancing inflation against unemployment and making sure to try to keep economic growth stable. He has significant experience managing one of the biggest economies in Europe and is highly regarded for his skills as well as honesty and integrity in being candid about challenges although he always is optimistic as well as realistic. He is described as the architecht of modern Duchies taxation policy which has balanced spending with targeted taxation that has meant a rebalancing of taxes more towards those who can afford it while keeping the tax burden low enough for business to thrive. -
On behalf of the Republic of Istkalen, I nominate Dr. Indras Uskeled for the position.
Uskeled, who holds a PhD. in economics, served as the director of the State Bank of the Federation of Istkalen, the country's central bank, between 2009 and 2012, and currently is an advisor to the Istkalenic Ministry of Finance. She is best known, however, for her academic work regarding finance democratization, public banking, and their applications in regards to monetary policy, as well as for contributing in large part to the modernization of banking and finance in Istkalen beginning in late 2021 and continuing to this day, ending, most importantly, the practice of issuing unbacked promissory notes and private currencies.
She holds that the ECB must maintain macroeconomic stability in the European Union regardless of cost and political pressure, taking all measures, including unconventional measures, possible to do so, and is moderately against austerity measures, holding that they must only pursued when no other potential policy paths are available. However, she believes that the measures of the ECB should not overrule decisions of the Council and other European institutions, and that the institution must work transparently and with a clear mandate.
Iras Tilkanas
Council Speaker and Councillor for the Republic of Istkalen -
Before moving to voting, there are a series of questions I want to present:
-
What would you do if a country came to you for debt relief? Would you require the selling off of public assets and sharp cuts in the budget in order to secure debt relief?
-
What should be the purpose of the Euro, in your opinion? Are you supportive of a 'Eurozone?'
-
What is the best policy path the ECB can take to prevent the formation of trade imbalances within the European Union?
-
What measures should the ECB take to prevent the accumulation of excessive public debt to GDP ratios?
-
Is there any point at which it may be sounder policy to let a country default rather than bail it out?
-
To what extent do you believe that debt restructuring is permissible?
-
What should the ECB do to prepare for a financial crisis?
There will be 72 hours to answer. Others present here may present other questions, if no responses have been delivered, or if all responses have been delivered for all questions previously presented.
Iras Tilkanas
Council Speaker and Councillor for the Republic of Istkalen -
-
Dominic Scott :
What would you do if a country came to you for debt relief? Would you require the selling off of public assets and sharp cuts in the budget in order to secure debt relief? While I believe fiscal responsibility is a key important tenet of public finance and the only way to long term stability I am a keynesian. In the moment of emergency is not a time to force a surplus or any reigning back of public finances. Such a move can only destroy the economy of a nation already struggling at the point they are asking for help. I would ask they write a plan of how to get to a surplus over 5-10 years without requiring surgical cuts right away to avoid exacerbating economic pain and require only small repayments during restructuring. The losses of a economic collapse are far more than the risk of losses of the money loaned under my more balanced approach. I would also not require sell off of public assets to pay back debts to bankers , that is theft to me if a country does not want to sell off public assets. Its neo-colonialism to enforce a neo-liberal model on a country.
What should be the purpose of the Euro, in your opinion? Are you supportive of a 'Eurozone?'
I think its a good potential trading currency to stardardise trades throughout Europe but also it could be used as a main currency for countries that want to use it for frictionless trade but if nations are to join they should meet certain standards like requiring a surplus over a 10 year period in government finances to prevent excessive borrowing at low interest rates.What is the best policy path the ECB can take to prevent the formation of trade imbalances within the European Union? I don't think trade imbalances in goods are too big an issue as long as the overall accounts and economy is not in defecit. You have countries that are manufactauring specialists, countries that are service specialists and tourism specialists. As long as their overal income streams come in balance over the long term then its fine.
What measures should the ECB take to prevent the accumulation of excessive public debt to GDP ratios? I would advocate working with governments to advise on how and when to spend during a crises or keep cost increases lower during the good times to reach a surplus. I would make sure governments are giving me good figures and then warn them if they are heading for trouble and trust governments to do their best to solve the problem. Trust is the key here and leaders will listen to us if they trust us. If we start forcing things on them however it may make a situation worse.
Is there any point at which it may be sounder policy to let a country default rather than bail it out? Rarely the case but there is obviously times that is the case. It is almost always better to bail out a country with fair conditions than risk an economic collapse. I would only ever consider allowing a default in the most dire of circumstances and as a last resort and if that happened would work with the EDA to secure a development grant to move forward.
To what extent do you believe that debt restructuring is permissible?
I think its essential everyone should pay their debts otherwise the market for it is undermined through lack of confidence. However its better to make restructuring possible and viable than have defaults which would mean everyone would lose everything they lent.
What should the ECB do to prepare for a financial crisis?
We should build up reserves to be able to get money and bail packages to nations. I'd like a system where we save a certain % of GDP per year for such a fund but that should be up to the council and Premier and Internal Affairs Commissioners. We need to build up a kitty to help nations on the verge of economic collapse preferably before such a collapse takes place. -
It is time to move on, unfortunately. Using the preferential voting method, voting begins NOW and will continue for 72 hours.
I vote as follows:
- Indras Uskeled
- Dominic Scott
- Luis de Guindos Jurado
Iras Tilkanas
Council Speaker and Councillor for the Republic of Istkalen -
I vote as follows:
- Luis de Guindos Jurado
Donald Tusk
Councillor for Spain -
Representing the State of Elthize, I vote as follows:
- Luis de Guindos Jurado
- Dominic Scott
- Indras Uskeled
Liam Zachary, Councillor for Elthize
-
Luis de Guindos Jurado won with an absolute majority of votes. Commisserations to all others.
Iras Tilkanas
Council Speaker and Councillor for the Republic of Istkalen -
Given the low turn out the result is hardly representitive of the nations of Europes views. I suggest it may be a good idea to re-run the election with all candidates actually answering the questions in the interests of democracy and not opening a vote until they do and excluding any candidate who doesn't answer the questions laid out before them in a reasonable time frame. 3 countries should not decide such a important role for the future and I am strongly concerned we do not know what the winner will do since he was too lazy to answer about his approach to economics.
James Mizrachi-Roscoe , Councillour for United Duchies
