Euro finance ministers name Mersch to ECB board

Eurozone finance ministers have proposed that the head of the Luxembourg central bank, Yves Mersch, should take a vacant board seat at the European Central Bank, a spokesman said Monday. "The Eurogroup (of finance ministers) has nominated Yves Mersch to the ECB board. The nomination should be formally adopted tomorrow" by all 27 European Union finance ministers, said the spokesman for the head of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker. Mersch, 62, has been head of the Luxembourg central bank since 1998 and would replace Spain's Manuel Gonzalez Paramo, whose stepped down from the ECB post in May. The announcement is perhaps the first of several personnel changes that are to be made Monday and Tuesday, with Juncker, also Luxembourg premier, due to stand down as Eurogroup head on July 17. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has made his case to succeed Juncker but the new French government has resisted his nomination. Juncker has said he is ready to serve another six months to give the European Union more time to nail down measures to tame the eurozone debt crisis. A European source said Monday that there would be an agreement that Juncker should remain in his post for an unspecified period but on the understanding that he would not serve another full term of two-and-half-years.