(Bloomberg) -- Austrian Labor and Economy Minister Martin Kocher is set to succeed Robert Holzmann at the helm of the central bank.
A university professor who’s specialized in behavioral economics, the 50-year old Kocher will take the seat of an incumbent who’s earned a reputation as one of the most hawkish members of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council.
The move will add another former politician to the handful already serving on the policy-setting panel that’s led by an ex-finance minister of France, Christine Lagarde.
Despite sharing such a background of serving in government, Kocher’s own career has been mainly grounded in academia. He led the IHS research institute before taking office in 2021.
He’s rarely commented on central-bank policy, apart from commending the ECB for helping temper inflation. In a January podcast, he said a well-managed mix of monetary-, budget- and social-policy measures would likely allow the latest phase of “painful” inflation to be shorter than previous episodes of price shocks.
Kocher’s appointment is part of an accelerated process in Austria to name a central-bank chief more than a year before the start of the job’s mandate.
Officials have claimed that early decisions were necessary to avoid potential gridlock following elections scheduled for Sept. 29.
Appointments are often the subject of political bargaining between the largest parties, and Holzmann was delegated by the far-right Freedom Party as part of a 2017 coalition agreement.
But making the appointments now has raised accusations that the current government is carving up big jobs that should really be left to its successor to choose.
A selection process so far in advance violates Austria’s public governance guidelines, which mandate leadership roles being posted no earlier than six months before their expiry, and requires “objective reasons” for them to be announced more than a year in advance.
As part of the same round of appointments, Edeltraud Stiftinger, the co-chief of state-owned business lender Austria Wirtschaftsservice GmbH, will become deputy governor, while the other two board positions will be taken by current board member Thomas Steiner and Josef Meichenitsch — a department head at the OeNB.
Gottfried Haber, who’s been deputy governor under Holzmann and is responsible for financial regulation, will leave the central bank for a role in academia or the private sector, Bloomberg reported on June 12. He may be considered as Supervisory Board chair at Erste Group Bank AG, according to the Kronen Zeitung newspaper.
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