Analysts are divided over the prospects of a so-called compromise candidate to head the European Central Bank (ECB), a week after the sudden exit of Axel Weber, the outgoing Bundesbank president, blew the race wide open.

Weber said last Friday that he would leave the Bundesbank in April and that he would not put himself forward as a candidate to replace Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the ECB, when the latter's mandate expires at the end of October. Weber was viewed by many as one of two