Luxembourg-based ESM to hire Dutch finance minister as adviser

The Luxembourg-based European Stability Mechanism -- a body offering financial assistance to eurozone countries experiencing or threatened with severe financing problems -- appointed Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem as a strategic adviser.

Dijsselbloem will leave his domestic post after his Labour  party was defeated in elections this year and aren't part of the new government. A four-party Dutch coalition under Prime Minister Mark Rutte was announced on October 10, after a record 208 days without an administration in place.

Dijsselbloem will keep his ESM post until his term as president of the Eurogroup,  an informal body of ministers from eurozone member states, ends, the ESM said in a statement.

"Jeroen Dijsselbloem has been a key personality both in euro area policy making and in our own development as the permanent crisis prevention mechanism over the last five years," ESM Managing Director Klaus Regling said in the statement. His "contract is for a limited time but it coincides with an important moment for the ESM's future development."

Dijsselbloem headed a Eurogroup meeting in Luxembourg on October 9. At a press conference afterwards he said  he could leave his domestic post in the week of October 23 and see through the Eurogroup role until the end of his mandate on January 13.

The ESM's establishment in 2012 was part of a permanent European response to the global financial crisis, marked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers --  the fourth-largest US investment bank -- in September 2008.

That shook the world's financial system and forced governments on both sides of the Atlantic to bail out banks, including the France-Belgium-Luxembourg rescue of Dexia in 2011.

Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain have had to use funding from the ESM or its predecessor, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) which was established as a temporary measure in 2010.

Discussions at this week's Eurogroup meeting included giving the ESM enhanced powers to deal with or avoid future crises.    

(Alistair Holloway, alistair.holloway@wort.lu, +352 49 93 739)