Paschal Donohoe declines to rule out ECB move
"The next governor [president], I believe, will be a central bank governor, someone who has run a central bank,' he said.
Mr Donohoe is currently standing for a third term as president of the Eurogroup, effectively chairing the finance ministers for the euro member countries.
A vote by ministers is due on Monday, with Mr Donohoe as incumbent and a representative of the European Peoples Party seen as the front runner.
Spanish economy minister Carlos Cuerpo and Lithuania's finance minister Rimantas Sadzius, who are also in the running, belong to the centre left Party of European Socialists bloc at EU level, potentially splitting that vote.
A bid to become ECB president would be potentially more challenging for Mr Donohoe, requiring backing from heads of government and MEPs from a wider spectrum.
If successful, a move directly from the Eurogroup presidency and a national finance post to Frankfurt would likely raise significant question marks over the substance of the ECB's independence from the other European institutions, which is legally mandated.
However, there is no hard wall in place to protect against such moves.
Luis de Guindos, the ECB's vice-president, was a senior minister in the Spanish government until he moved to the ECB.
Current ECB president Ms Lagarde was French finance minister until 2011, although she then spent eight years away from European politics as head of the IMF before moving to Frankfurt.
Up to relatively recently, ECB presidents tended to be less party political. Mario Draghi was a central banker and technocrat before taking up the top job at Frankfurt, only later becoming Italian prime minister.
Jean Claude Trichet, who presided over the euro crisis, was a former governor of the French central bank and his predecessor, Wim Duisenberg, headed the Dutch central bank, although he had been a government minister earlier in his career.
The presidency of the ECB comes up for grabs in October 2026, when Ms Lagarde's term expires.
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