Wim Duisenberg, the former European Central Bank chief who helped create the euro currency, was found dead on Sunday in his swimming pool in southeastern France, officials said. He was 70.
Police did not give a cause for Duisenberg’s death but rescue teams and police said Duisenberg was found unconscious in the swimming pool at his home in the town of Faucon, and could not be resuscitated.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin expressed his ”great sadness” at Duisenberg’s death, saying in a statement that he ”played a vital role in establishing the common currency and the stability of the euro”.
Duisenberg was the first head of the European Central Bank, serving from 1998 to 2003. Having shepherded the euro through its 1999 introduction, he became known as the father of the 12-nation European common currency.
Tall and stoop-shouldered, with a big mane of white hair, Duisenberg sometimes came across as more of a professor than a heavyweight policy-maker.
A chain-smoking golf lover, Duisenberg kept a decidedly low profile as ECB chief but was a major figurehead bearing overall responsibility for price stability in the euro zone of more than 300-million people.
During his tenure as ECB chief, Duisenberg was known for his cautious monetary policy and was eager to defend the euro through its early years.
He sometimes frustrated financial markets and politicians by sticking to the bank’s inflation-fighting stance, keeping rates higher than some investors and officials would have liked.
”I hear, but I don’t listen” to such pleas was one of his typically blunt responses. Duisenberg repeatedly said it was up to European governments to pursue structural reforms — such as loosening rigid rules on hiring and firing — if they wanted more growth.
Higher rates are the bank’s main tool to fight inflation, but they can crimp economic growth. The bank’s tight policy helped keep the euro a strong, stable currency even as it is criticised as a drag on growth.
Perhaps Duisenberg’s most difficult moment came in October 2000 when, in an interview with The Times of London, he suggested that the ECB would not intervene to support the declining euro before the upcoming United States presidential election.
Speculators promptly pounded the euro to new lows, and Duisenberg’s lack of caution was widely criticised.
One of Duisenberg’s biggest achievements was the smooth introduction of euro notes and coins in early 2002. Twelve national currencies were removed from circulation by banks and shops and replaced with the new money in a huge logistical effort that defied predictions of long lines and consumer confusion.
Duisenberg, who unabashedly sought to model the ECB on the US Federal Reserve Bank, was at times referred to as ”Europe’s Greenspan” — a reference to Fed chief Alan Greenspan.
His selection as ECB chief was championed by Germany — Europe’s biggest economy — but faced into controversy when France proposed its central banker, Jean-Claude Trichet, as a rival candidate.
Trichet took over in 2003.
Willem Frederik Duisenberg was born July 9, 1935, in the Dutch city of Heerenven. He became a member of the Dutch Labour party, and received a doctorate in economics from Groningen University, writing his dissertation on the economic consequences of disarmament.
He had also served as finance minister and central bank chief in the Netherlands, and once headed the European Monetary Institute — an ECB predecessor — in Frankfurt, Germany.
Duisenberg is survived by his wife, Gretta Duisenberg-Bedier de Prairie, and two adult sons from a previous marriage. – Sapa-AP