Eurogroup’s next leader will be the Portuguese Mário Centeno

The Eurogroup elected today Mário Centeno, minister of finance of Portugal, as President of the Eurogroup, in line with Protocol 14 of the EU treaties.

The new President will take office as of 13 January 2018 and will serve a two and a half year term. The first Eurogroup meeting under the presidency of Mário Centeno will take place on 22 January 2018.

Mário Centeno was appointed finance minister of Portugal on 26 November 2015.

The Eurogroup is an informal body where ministers of euro area member states discuss matters of common concern in relation to sharing the euro as the single currency. It focuses in particular on the coordination of economic policies and usually meets once a month, on the eve of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council meeting.

Who is Mario Centeno?

Mário Centeno (1966) was sworn in as Finance Minister of the XXI Constitutional Government of the Portuguese Republic on 26 November 2015.

Mr Centeno joined Portugal’s Central Bank in 2000, where he worked as an economist until 2004. From 2004 to 2013 he was assistant director of the Central Bank Economics’ Department. He also directed the Macroeconomics Statistics Development’s work group in the Superior Statistics Council between 2007 and 2013.

He was member of the Economic Policy Committee from the European Commission between 2004 and 2013. He is member of the Editorial Board of Portuguese Economic Journal since 2001. He was member of the Executive Committee of European Association of Labor Economists from 2003 to 2005. He is author and co-author or several scientific publications, books and book chapters related to his areas of interest, such as Labour Economy, Econometrics, Microeconomics and Theory of Contracts.

Mr Centeno graduated in Economics by ISEG-Technical University of Lisbon in 1990, he has two Masters – the first one in Applied Mathematics, by ISEG-UTL in 1993, the second one in Economics, by Harvard University, USA, in 1998 – and a PhD in Economics, by Harvard University, USA, concluded in 2000. He is consultant of Portugal’s Central Bank since 2014. He is Professor at ISEG, University de Lisboa.