Appointment of members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (debate)
Speaker: Irene TINAGLI (Italy, Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament / Partito Democratico)
Date: 2019-12-16

  Irene Tinagli,  Rapporteur. – Madam President, with these two reports that will be voted tomorrow, the European Parliament expresses its non-binding opinion on the appointment of two new members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
Over the last month, the Council has recommended the names of Fabio Panetta and Isabel Schnabel and on both candidates the European Central Bank has expressed its positive opinion. The curricula vitae sent to us by the President of the European Council clearly show how both candidates are persons of recognised standing and professional experience in monetary or banking matters, as required by Article 238 of the Treaty.
Fabio Panetta has spent his professional career of over 30 years as a central banker. He has served in important positions at national, European and international level, and he is currently the senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy. Isabel Schnabel is a distinguished scholar of one of the most prestigious European universities and for five years she has been a member of the Council of Economic Advisers of Germany. 
The ECON Committee submitted to the two candidates a written questionnaire of over 50 questions and subsequently organised a public hearing. The vast support received by Fabio Panetta and Isabel Schnabel, 90% and 70% respectively, demonstrates the very wide appreciation of the ECON Committee for these two excellent candidates. 
However, the two reports do not simply express our support for Fabio Panetta and Isabel Schnabel; they recall and renew battles that the European Parliament has been fighting for some time. 
First and foremost, the battle for a selection and appointing procedure that involved the Parliament more. Of course, we appreciated that after our requests the President of the Eurogroup, Mário Centeno, by publicly announcing which nominations had been received for each position, has made the selection process more transparent than in the past. However, we reiterate our request that the Council, before each of its recommendations, submits to the Parliament a list of at least two names where at least one man and one woman are present. 
Only in this way will it be possible to guarantee equal opportunities for men and women in the selection procedures for top positions in our institutions, and therefore to favour gender balance in management bodies.
We already have achieved some important results in this regard. In the last six months, half of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank was renewed, and two out of the three new members are women. One third of the Executive Board will be composed by women, and let us not forget that one of them has been appointed as the President of the ECB. 
However, this is not enough. A few months ago, European newspapers published a photo of the ECB Governing Council, that is the other management body of the ECB, and there was only one woman in that picture – Madame Lagarde herself. 
Of course this is not due to the nomination process we are discussing; this is due to the fact that the non-executive part of the ECB Governing Council is composed by all the governors of the national central banks of the euro area, and all of them happen to be men. 
This makes it clear that our aim for a gender-balanced representation in European bodies can be reached only if this process takes place everywhere in national institutions first. For this reason, we call on the Council to forward our message to all Member States. 
To conclude, I just want to say that our support for these two excellent candidates, and our responsibility in guaranteeing the correct and regular functioning of the ECB, while safeguarding interinstitutional cooperation, shall not diminish our battles which we will continue fighting with determination in the future.