Mrs. Vestager had ruled that the vehicle holding the funds to save important Italian banks was not private and could not intervene to prevent banking crises. This resulted in 2015 in a halt to the interventions already decided with the agreement of the Italian central bank.
Vestager's position prevented preventive interventions and caused a lengthening of the time to deal with those crises, with much higher costs for savers, investors, shareholders, and competing banks that had to shoulder the burdens of successive bailouts, exacerbated by the generalized depreciation in the values of impaired loans from 2015 onward.
Subsequent EU Court of Justice rulings recognized the legitimacy of the Italian rescue plan. Now, after savers and investors are still owed for the damages suffered, Vestager is running for the presidency of the EIB without having settled anything and without any charge for the errors of law she caused.
The Belgian finance minister, who oversees the selection process, sent a letter inviting Member States to back Spanish candidate Nadia Calviño. It is unclear whether Ms Calviño has the support of the required majority of 18 Member States.
However, the EIB President has to be appointed before the first of January. The minority block, which is composed also of Italy, is more likely to back Calviño rather than Vestager, especially after what she did.
