International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde on Tuesday announced she would step down “temporarily” from the global crisis lender after being nominated to lead the European Central Bank.
EU leaders announced a deal to fill the top positions in the political and economic bloc, including picking Lagarde to succeed ECB chief Mario Draghi, whose single, eight-year term ends in November.
“I am honored to have been nominated for the Presidency of the European Central Bank,” Lagarde said in a statement, adding that she would “temporarily relinquish my responsibilities as Managing Director of the IMF during the nomination period.”
The nomination means Lagarde will step down two years before the end of her second five-year term at the helm of the IMF, which will open a search for her replacement.
The fund’s executive board met Tuesday and named American economist David Lipton, Lagarde’s chief deputy, as interim leader of the institution.
“We accept Ms Lagarde’s decision to relinquish her IMF responsibilities temporarily during the nomination period,” the board said in a statement.
“We have full confidence in First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton as Acting Managing Director of the IMF.”
By tradition, since the institutions were created in the wake of World War II, a European has always led the IMF and an American has been at the helm of the World Bank, although emerging market nations in recent years have pressed for more representation.
When Lagarde was selected in 2011, it was the first time the fund had an open leadership search process, in which any board member or country representative could nominate a candidate. Lagarde was selected over Agustin Carstens, then the head of the Mexican central bank.
AFP
