But there will have been considerable relief in Frankfurt that the Moulin was approved without turbulence. The fact that the appointment didn’t descend into a prolonged political battle removes one headache from what one policymaker — granted anonymity to speak candidly about Moulin’s approval — described as an “already super-messy world.”
“I very much look forward to working with the new French governor on the Governing Council,” one of Moulin’s future peers said.
Ahead of the vote, another governor had told POLITICO that the nomination had been generally well received among policymakers, particularly after Villeroy threw his full support behind Moulin.
But French lawmakers eager to grill Moulin over how he would vote on interest rate decisions as a member of the ECB’s Governing Council were in for a disappointment. He declined to answer questions about monetary policy, including whether he supported lowering rates as the conflict in the Middle East squeezes the European economy.
Moulin did, however, address technical questions on matters from the digital euro — which he supports — to the Basel 3 accords on bank capital and liquidity, which he backed implementing in a “pragmatic” way.
Lawmakers also repeatedly questioned Moulin on securitization, the practice of combining, repackaging and transforming illiquid assets such as loans into freely-tradable securities. Former ECB chief Mario Draghi called for greater use of securitization in his landmark 2024 report on European competitiveness.