Minister Donohoe gets second term as Eurogroup president

Paschal Donohoe, the current Minister for Finance, has been re-elected for a second term as the president of the Eurogroup of Finance Ministers.

In a unanimous vote at a meeting of the Eurogroup, Minister Donohoe was elected after no other candidate declared.

“I am enormously privileged that my colleagues have entrusted me with a second term working on their behalf,” said Minister Donohoe. “My first priority, is to deliver tangible results from our policy coordination to allow us to overcome the challenges that we are facing, and to pursue the great opportunities that await the euro and the people of Europe.”

It is also customary for the president of the Eurogroup to be elected as the Chair of the ESM Board of Governors. The incumbent president’s new term will commence on 13 January 2023.

Unusually, by the time the new president begins his second term, he will no longer be Finance Minister, but instead, due to the government change in December 2022, will become Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. Minister Michael McGrath, the current Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, will become Finance Minister and will participate in the Eurogroup as Ireland’s representative.

An Taoiseach Micheál Martin had said that Mr Donohoe has been a “very effective chair of the Eurogroup” and is “very, very well respected across Europe”.