Carlos Cuerpo was on manoeuvres. The Spanish economy minister walked into a meeting of euro zone finance ministers last October with a proposal under his arm.
The European Union has for years been debating capital market reforms that would make it easier for finance to move across borders and encourage people to invest their savings, unlocking a huge pot of money that could be pumped into European businesses.
Progress has been glacial because governments are reluctant to align national rules around subjects such as insolvency regimes and oversight.
So what if a smaller group keen on the financial reforms went ahead without the rest? Cuerpo suggested this cohort could plough on and integrate aspects of their capital markets, with other EU states following later.
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The idea was trailed in the media the morning of the Eurogroup, which is the monthly meeting bringing together finance ministers from the 20 euro zone countries.
Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe, who has been president of the Eurogroup since 2020, certainly took notice. It was as good an indication as any that Cuerpo was after his job.
Donohoe got out early this year to signal he wanted to continue chairing the meetings for a third term. Just as the deadline for challengers was about to close last Friday, the Spanish minister put his name forward, as did Lithuania’s finance minister Rimantas Sadzius.
The 20 ministers will vote at the next Eurogroup meeting on Monday. A simple majority of 11 elects a winner and Donohoe is heavily tipped to hang on to the position.
Cuerpo, a former senior finance official, has served as economy minister in Pedro Sánchez’s left-wing government in Spain since late 2023.
The Lithuanian candidate has pitched himself as someone who would represent smaller EU states, though Donohoe has largely cornered that share of the market. The vote is likely to be a contest between Ireland and Spain.
It was the same story five years ago. Donohoe was up against Spain’s Nadia Calvino, who had the backing of France and Germany. The Irish minister built a coalition of small and mid-sized states to clinch the influential role.
Those in Donohoe’s circle are confident he has more than a dozen votes heading into the election. Holding on to those commitments of support has been the focus of this week. The Dublin politician has spent months laying the groundwork for his re-election with other finance ministers.
Fine Gael’s stock is at a low ebb within the European People’s Party (EPP), the centre-right grouping that dominates EU politics, but Donohoe remains well regarded. Cuerpo and Sadzius come from centre-left governments and the EPP want one of their own to hold on to the Eurogroup chair.
Ireland’s network of Ambassadors have been put to work, making calls to their counterparts in capitals across the euro zone to talk up Donohoe.
“The time has come to move from discussion to delivery. The credibility of our collective project depends not on what we say, but on what we achieve – together, and without delay,” Cuerpo wrote in a letter to finance ministers announcing his bid.
There is an implicit dig there that the Eurogroup has been too much of a talking shop during Donohoe’s stewardship as chair.
Though in some sense that is the remit. The group usually tees up decisions that are later taken during meetings of all 27 EU finance ministers, or by national leaders at summits.
“What the Eurogroup can do is co-ordinate the positions of the euro zone member states,” says Menelaos Markakis, an associate professor of European law at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
“During the previous financial crisis, the key terms of bailouts were agreed essentially in the form of the Eurogroup and formally adopted by other institutions ... There’s no doubt the Eurogroup took the lead in that context,” he says.
“It’s very obvious that he has a certain style, driving towards consensus,” Markakis says of Donohoe.
The Eurogroup president is there to cajole the rest of the room in the same direction, one EU official said.
There was a slight ring of former Fianna Fáil taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s 2002 steady-as-she-goes election slogan in Donohoe’s campaign letter to finance ministers. “We have achieved much together in recent years, but we have a lot more to do,” he wrote.
One thing working in Ireland’s favour is the fact Sánchez’s government in Spain doesn’t have a lot of favours to call in with other European capitals at the moment.
The Government will also be thankful the Eurogroup position has not been sucked into the bartering to fill several senior European Central Bank (ECB) posts coming vacant in the next two or so years.
Picking a Eurogroup chair could well have become one piece of some grand deal to settle on Christine Lagarde’s successor as ECB president, if the election had taken place next year.
Donohoe still faces a nervous weekend before the votes are cast on Monday. When it comes to the back-room horse trading that decides who gets some EU job, you’re never safe until you’re actually over the line.
