The German government and opposition jostled on Sunday to promote their favourites to succeed Bundesbank president Ernst Welteke, who has resigned in an ethics scandal, with a decision due by Wednesday.
Government sources said on Sunday the cabinet would approve a successor by mid-week, identifying three leading figures - Bundesbank Vice President Juergen Stark, Deputy Finance Minister Caio Koch-Weser and Deputy Economy Minister Alfred Tacke.
The decision is the government's to take, but the Bundesbank could undermine a candidate by airing its disapproval.
The government's initial favourite, Koch-Weser, could get a cool reception due to strained ties between the Bundesbank and his current employers, the Finance Ministry, and over past comments encouraging the European Central Bank to cut rates.
If appointed president of the Bundesbank, Koch-Weser would become a member of the ECB's Governing Council which decides on interest rates in the 12-nation euro zone. Accusations that the Finance Ministry engineered Welteke's Friday resignation may also count against him, although it has denied leaking details of the Welteke family's stay in a luxury Berlin hotel two years ago at Dresdner Bank's expense.
A Bundesbank source said on Friday Koch-Weser lacked support in the financial community, but a government source insisted on Sunday he was still in the race.
Opposition conservatives meanwhile urged the centre-left government to underline its pledge to respect the central bank's independence by promoting its vice-president Stark.
"The current vice president is supremely qualified. I hope the solution is not a narrow-minded party political one," Dietrich Austermann, the conservative's finance expert, told German NDR radio.
However, while the vice president is not a member of a political party, some would question his political independence since he served as the deputy to conservative Finance Minister Theo Waigel in the 1990s.
The dispute between the Finance Ministry and the Bundesbank over Welteke's conduct and alleged the ministry's interference in the central bank's independence could help the man from neither institution - Deputy Economy Minister Tacke.
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