Will Monti make a “European” career starting with the Eurogroup presidency?

Brussels – “What will Mario Monti do after the 2013 elections?” The question has been circulating since the day after he was appointed Prime Minister, and today it could be answered: president of the Eurogroup, the exclusive club of the seventeen euro finance ministers. According to an indiscretion published by the French newspaper Le Monde, European Council President Herman van Rompuy (who is also president of the Eurogroup of heads of government) is pressuring Monti to accept the candidature to succeed Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who has decided not to run again at the July deadline, after having occupied the seat continuously since 2005. In Brussels no one is surprised, “no rule says that the president of the Eurogroup must be a serving finance minister,” points out an expert, thinking of the aftermath of the Italian elections. Moreover, “the esteem in which Monti is held among the prime ministers and in the Commission plays in favour of the candidature,’ says an EU source.

This could be the first step in a new European career, after the one as a commissioner: the two-and-a-half-year term of office of the next Eurogroup president coincides with that of the president of the EU Council and the president of the Commission. Monti is the name that most people in Brussels today would bet on for one or the other of the two posts.