Gehrig leads race to be Central bank boss
The Swiss National Bank's supervisory board has decided to nominate Bruno Gehrig to be the central bank's next chairman. The current chairman, Hans Meyer, is retiring at the end of the year.
Gehrig leads race for Central bank boss
The proposal now goes to the government for approval. A final decision is expected in the next few weeks.
The 40-member bank council also nominated the chief executive of the Swiss Bankers’ Association, Niklaus Blatter, to join the SNB’s three-member directorate.
Gehrig is one of two vice-presidents at the bank, and the decision to appoint him above his colleague, the French-speaker Jean-Pierre Roth, is likely to cause upsets in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.
Gehrig’s elevation would mean native German speakers had held the top job at the central bank three times in a row.
It would also have wider implications on the country’s traditional policy of sharing out power between its different language groups.
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