(Adds comments from Japan)
ATHENS/BUDAPEST, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Greece named former
Finance Minister Yannos Papantoniou as its candidate for the top
job at the EBRD on Thursday, and Budapest said it would back a
former central bank head for the post.
A Hungarian government source confirmed a Financial Times
report that Hungary would back Gyorgy Suranyi.
Last week Germany nominated Deputy Finance Minister Thomas
Mirow and the Czech Republic put forward central bank chief
Zdenek Tuma.
Jean Lemierre, current president of the European Bank for
Reconstruction and Development, said on Tuesday he would not
seek a third term after serving eight years in the job.
"The finance ministry confirms that Yannos Papantoniou is a
candidate for the position. It goes without saying that the
government will support a Greek candidate," a Greek Finance
Ministry official in Athens said.
Papantoniou served as finance minister from 1994 to 2001
with the socialist PASOK party then in government.
Under his economic stewardship, Greece joined the euro zone
in January 2001. But he was later sidelined by new PASOK leader
George Papandreou.
Hungary's Suranyi currently heads the Central and Eastern
European division of Intesa Sanpaolo <ISP.MI> and is the
chairman of the Italian banking group's Hungarian unit, CIB.
Asked to respond to the FT report, a government source, who
did not wish to be identified, said: "I can confirm that."
The government would make an official announcement at a
later date, the source said.
As Hungary's central bank governor from 1995 to 2001,
Suranyi played a key role in designing an austerity package in
1995 to curb the country's huge budget and current account
deficits, and in the subsequent consolidation of Hungary's
economy and markets.
Lemierre, 57, a Frenchman, has steered the bank through half
of its existence and helped foster the rapid growth of economies
in the former Soviet bloc.
The bank was established in 1991 to help develop market
economies in the region. It has 61 shareholder countries plus
the European Union and the European Investment Bank.
The EBRD's shareholders will vote at their annual meeting in
Kiev in May on a replacement for Lemierre.
Japan's top financial diplomat Naoyuki Shinohara said
earlier in London that Japan, the bank's second largest
shareholder, currently had no Japanese candidate.
"We have heard about some candidates for the next presidency
of the EBRD. I don't think we have got the full list (yet). We
have not decided on our position as to the new president of the
EBRD. There is no Japanese candidate at the moment," said
Shinohara, vice finance minister for international affairs.
"We have been contacted by one country which is recommending
a candidate for the next president to garner Japan's support."
Australia is planning to withdraw as a shareholder of the
EBRD but Shinohara renewed Japan's commitment.
"The EBRD has important tasks... We are not thinking of
withdrawing our membership from the EBRD," he said.
The EBRD's presidency is on the agenda when Ecofin ministers
meet in Brussels next week.
(Additional reporting by Sandor Peto in Budapest, Toni
Vorobyova and Natsuko Waki in London)
(Reporting by George Georgiopoulos, Lefteris Papadimas;
Editing by Gerrard Raven)
