Buba’s Nagel set to replace Sarrazin

Joachim Nagel, the head of the Bundesbank's market operations, was on Thursday nominated to replace Thilo Sarrazin, a former member of the Bundesbank board.

A Bundesbank spokesperson confirmed on Friday that the Western states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland had selected Nagel as their candidate for the executive board position on Thursday. The spokesperson said Nagel's appointment would be subject to approval from the Bundesrat, Germany's upper house of parliament, and confirmation by the country's President, Christian Wulff.

Nagel told CentralBanking.com: "The nomination is an honour for me."

If appointed, he will be the sixth member of the executive board at the central bank, taking it to full complement.

The central bank's legislation requires three of the six board members to be appointed by state governments and the other three by the federal government. The spokesperson said it was the turn of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, two states in West Germany, to select a board member.

Before joining the Bundesbank, Nagel spent three years as an adviser on economic and financial policy in Bonn. He then worked as a researcher at the University of Karlsruhe from 1997 to 1999. He joined the Bundesbank in 1999 as head of public relations, before becoming a director and then president of the regional office in Bremen. In 2003, Nagel was put in charge of liquidity management operations at the central bank's headquarters in Frankfurt. The following year, he was named the head of market analysis. He then spent three years at the Buba's market research and portfolios department, before moving to head the central bank's market operations in 2008.

Nagel replaces Sarrazin who resigned in September after members of the board called for his dismissal from the central bank. The Bundesbank board voted unanimously to recommend Sarrazin's dismissal after he made a series of inflammatory remarks towards immigrants, but withdrew the charges after Sarrazin agreed to leave the central bank. At the end of August, Sarrazin told Welt am Sonntag, a Sunday newspaper: "All Jews share a particular gene, [and] Basques share a certain gene that sets them apart." Sarrazin had a record of making racially disparaging remarks prior to that, saying Germany "dumber on average" because of the influx of Turkish, Middle Eastern and African immigrants. The Buba stripped him of his responsibility for the prestigious cash management function last October, in response to similar comments.

The Bundesbank expects Nagel's appointment to be confirmed by December.