Germany demands a say in choosing ECB chief

Speculation over the next European Central Bank president jolted financial markets Wednesday as media reports said German central bank chief Axel Weber was out of the running.Weber had been tipped as one of the most likely successors to Frenchman Jean-Claude Trichet when he steps down in October.But reports said Weber, who has irritated some European Union (EU) figures, was no longer "available" and that he would give up his Bundesbank position to join Deutsche Bank, Germany's largest private bank.

France supports Bundesbank chief Axel Weber becoming European Central Bank president when Frenchman Jean-Claude Trichet steps down in late 2011, German media reports said on Friday.While Germany managed to get the ECB based in the German city of Frankfurt, the bank's two presidents so far have been a Dutchman and a Frenchman, the late Wim Duisenberg and Trichet.

AFP / Ahmad Gharabli / Paulo Nunes Dos SantosBrussels (AFP) - EU leaders are set to ignore bitter opposition from Warsaw and re-elect Poland's Donald Tusk as the bloc's president Thursday in a row that underscores the difficulties of post-Brexit unity.

FRANKFURT — ECB President Mario Draghi kept borrowing costs at rock bottom levels on Thursday, sticking to his course of ultra-loose monetary policy in spite of a barrage of German criticism of his recipe for tackling the eurozone’s economic malaise. Having yet to implement or fully explain some of the measures he announced last month, Draghi is set to give investors more information about the European Central Bank’s latest plan to buy corporate bonds.

Nobel Prize-winning US economist Paul Krugman launched a withering attack on Monday on the head of Germany's central bank, the most likely successor to Jean-Claude Trichet as European Central Bank chief.Krugman said that appointing Bundesbank boss Axel Weber as head of the Frankfurt-based ECB would be "a risk for the euro" in an interview with German business daily Handelsblatt.

Frankfurt (AFP) - The European Central Bank dismissed speculation of an early end to its ultra-easy money policy at a protest-marred press conference on Wednesday, saying its medicine is already fuelling economic recovery.

FRANKFURT — The banker now in charge of rescuing the euro wants his top staff to take Sundays off. Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, eschews long meetings and refrains from lecturing his colleagues, senior ECB officials say. Until Draghi took over a year ago, insiders say, the bank had a workaholic, micro-managed regime. But even as the Italian has proved ready to intervene in the markets and try policies that would have been unthinkable a few years ago, he has brought a freer, more hands-off culture to the bank.

In surprising comments that may rekindle a verbal currency war between president Trump and Europe, German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble told German newspaper Tagesspiegel that in his opinion the Euro is "too low" for Germany, echoing criticism from Trump's trade advisor Peter Navarro, who last week told the FT that Germany was exploiting its US and EU partners by using a “grossly undervalued” euro to create a vast trade surplus.