by Eric J. Lyman
ROME, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Italy is facing the prospect of having no representation on the board of the European Central Bank for the first time ever.
But while Italian media reported the possibility as a cause for worry, analysts said Italy should focus more on the monetary strategy of the next president of the European Central Bank rather than the nationality of board members.
The European Central Bank was created in 1998 in order to pave the way for the euro currency, which first went into circulation in 2002.
Italy had back-to-back board members from the founding of the board until 2011, when Mario Draghi, an Italian economist and former governor of the Bank of Italy, was named the bank's president. Draghi's term finishes in October.
The president of the bank cannot come from the same country on consecutive terms and the current vice-president, Luis de Guindos, will hold his seat until 2026, ruling out Italy for those two seats on the six-member board.
The euro currency zone's two largest economies -- Germany and France -- have permanent seats on the board, and the terms for the final two seats will not end until 2020 and 2022, respectively.
That means Italy's only chance to fill a board seat is if euro zone member states pick a German or French president or vice-president, freeing up that country's permanent seat.
The question over board membership comes as Italy struggles with anemic economic growth and government debt totaling 2.36 trillion euros (2.63 trillion U.S. dollars), the highest in the European Union and the equivalent to an unsustainable 132 percent of the country's gross domestic product.
But according to Francesco Daveri, director of the masters of business administration program at Bocconi University in Milan, having an Italian on the board would not help Italy resolve its economic issues.
"Representatives on the board of the Central Bank are not there to represent the interests of their particular country," Daveri told Xinhua. "No matter what their nationality, they are there to guide monetary policy in a way that benefits the entire euro currency zone."
Italy did benefit from a policy of "quantitative easing" -- adding to the money supply to help encourage investment -- that took place during Draghi's term. But Daveri stressed that the policy was aimed at sparking economic growth across the entire 19-nation euro currency zone.
"It's very likely that whoever held Draghi's job at that time would have come to a similar conclusion and made a similar policy decision," Ruggero Bertelli, a banking professor at the University of Siena, said in an interview.
Of the leading candidates to succeed Draghi, Germany's Jens Weidmann, head of the German Bundesbank, has been critical of Draghi's policies in the past.
The other main candidates for the top job, including two from France, two from Finland, and one from Holland, are all likely to continue Draghi's general policies if selected, media reports said.
"I believe that whoever Draghi's successor is, he will have no choice but to continue along a similar path," Andrea Terzi, an economist with Franklin University in Switzerland, told Xinhua via email.
Italy and Germany are the only two countries to have continually held a European Central Bank board seat since the bank was founded. France had a one-year absence, from 2010 to 2011, when Draghi's predecessor, Jean-Claude Trichet, stepped down and before a new seat opened up.
Luxembourg and Belgium hold the last two permanent board seats on the current board, joining Draghi, board vice-president de Guindos, and the permanent seats held by Germany and France.
