Eurogroup to elect new chief in December

Brussels, Oct 10 (IANS) Finance Ministers of the 19-country Eurozone are scheduled to elect a new chief to chair the group at their December meeting, said outgoing Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem.

"I would leave my job," Dijsselbloem, also Dutch Finance Minister, told a press conference in Luxembourg on Monday following a Eurogroup meeting, referring he would step down in two weeks as his party will not join a long-waited coalition nearly seven month after election in the Netherlands, Xinhua news agency reported.

Dijsselbloem's mandate as Eurogroup will last until January 13 next year.

"I have put to the colleagues in the Eurogroup today that it would be my intention to complete my mandate which runs until January 13," he told reporters.

"There was unanimous support for that, everyone was content with me staying on until mid-January," Dijsselbloem added.

The new Eurogroup chief's mandate would start in January 2018, but the election should take place at the end of the Eurogroup meeting in December while candidates can be put forward in the two weeks before the December meeting.

Position of Eurogroup president usually falls on a sitting finance minister in the single currency zone.

Earlier at the Eurogroup meeting, finance ministers as well bid farewell to Wolfgang Schauble, the German Finance Minister who is slated to become speaker of the Bundestag in Germany's new government.

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