PRAGUE The Czechia wants to intervene in the fight for the influential position of Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This will be the first time he has been a member. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the candidate himself – economist and president of the Czech Chamber of Commerce Vladimír Dlouhý – have already launched the campaign.
Choosing an exchange rate of 28 crowns per dollar turned out to be a good decision, says post-revolutionary Minister Dlouhý |
The selection of a new helmsman for the organization, which represents 36 countries and whose views influence the highest levels of world politics, will begin in September and end in the spring of next year. The last election took place in 2006. Of the six candidates, Mexican economist Ángel Gurría was given the green light. It ends next year at the OECD headquarters in Paris. The 70-year-old former finance and foreign minister of Mexico will retire, just as his predecessor, Canadian Donald Johnston, 15 years ago.
Therefore, the search for a successor begins. This time, for the first time since it became a member country 25 years ago, the Czechia does not want to stay either. The government decided in early March to nominate its candidate. He will be Dlouhý (66), an economist, since 2014 the president of the largest business association in the country, a candidate for president of the republic in the 2012 elections and, since 1997, a consultant to the financial company Goldman Sachs.
Dlouhý, who was a member of the Communist Party and then a minister in the post-November governments under the ODA, serves on the government’s renewed National Economic Council and advises President Miloš Zeman. The proposal for his nomination probably comes from these spheres.
The government, together with the decision to nominate Dlouhý to head the OECD, instructed the Minister of Foreign Affairs and other cabinet members to launch an election campaign. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has started working on the support of Vladimír Dlouhý and currently everything is in the preparatory phase,” said MFA spokeswoman Mariana Wernerová when asked by LN. According to LN sources, Dlouhý himself is launching his campaign. Its target is probably Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, with which the Czechia forms an alliance called the Visegrad Four. Dlouhý himself did not respond to LN’s question about his candidacy.
The election of the top head of the influential organization will officially start on September 1 and will last several months. “No later than 1 March 2021, the Chairman of the Selection Committee shall conduct confidential consultations with OECD member countries and, on that basis, shall then submit the candidate with the most support to the OECD Council for approval. The appointment of a new Secretary General will be decided by OECD member states on the basis of consensus, “Liana Mariana Wernerová, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, described the process of selection. The OECD Council has two levels. One at the level of foreign ministers of member states, the other composed of permanent representatives of member states who have diplomatic status.
It is not yet certain how many candidates will run for the seat of the Secretary-General of the OECD, who has a secretariat of 2.5 thousand economists, lawyers, scientists and other staff under him, and who also chairs the OECD Council. Only six countries took part in the last race in 2006 with their handcuffs on fire. Ángel Gurría and then Marek Belka, the former Prime Minister of Poland, were the most impressed for the selection committee.
A position that includes the basic salary (excluding the employer’s contributions to the retirement pension, health insurance, travel home, household, wife, etc.) in the amount of almost 227 thousand euros per year (about six million crowns, data for 2019) was finally given to Ángel Gurría.
What chance does Vladimír Dlouhý have? “From a political and professional point of view, Vladimír Dlouhý is a very suitable candidate for the position of Secretary General of an important organization such as the OECD,” said Karel Dyba, a former ambassador to the OECD and a member of the former post-November governments. “But the process of reaching a consensus is very complicated. During my time at the OECD, when Ángel Gurría was re-elected, the United States and Japan had a strong position, “he added.
About a fifth of the OECD’s common budget has long come from Washington. Last year it was 20.5 percent. The other largest payers are Japan and Germany. These facts are also reflected in the filling of influential positions of Deputy Secretaries-General. “It’s time to deploy an Asian candidate,” said another source, who did not want to be named.
According to Dyba, the Czechia proposed a candidate for OECD structures only once, to head the International Energy Agency. The nominee – unsuccessful – was former Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek.
Dlouhý’s nomination provoked a storm of resentment in the Chamber of Commerce. In mid-April, three of the four vice presidents urged him to resign as president of the chamber because of his conflict of interest, because as head of a business association that is often in opposition to government policy, he cannot be a government nominee. Dlouhy refused, submitting the case to the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce and submitting to his decision. At the same time, he had a reputable law firm prepare an opinion on whether a conflict of interest really existed. The result was negative. And the board took the Long side in May.
An election assembly awaits the chamber in July. The current president, Dlouhý, is the only candidate for a new president.
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