The Netherlands - Dutchman Jeroen Dijsselbloem elected new Eurozone President

Dijsselbloem (left) and Juncker (right)

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, 46, who has only been the Netherlands' finance minister since November, will now face one of the world's most daunting financial tasks - helping to lead the group of 17 European Union countries that use the euro back to financial stability.

Dijsselbloem replaces Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, who held the job for eight years. Juncker, who is also prime minister of Luxembourg, has over the past three years been at the heart of efforts to avoid a breakup of the euro, a currency used by 330 million people. He has weathered all-night meetings and early-morning press conferences with global markets hanging on his every word.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem is a member of the center left labor Party PVDA within the present Dutch coalition government.

Some EU leaders feel the corner has been turned in the effort to save the euro currency.

But at a press conference after the meeting of the eurozone finance ministers in Brussels, at which he was elected, Dijsselbloem cautioned against overconfidence.  "The job isn't done yet, and completion of the banking union is essential," he said.

Despite his inexperience, he will face immediate challenges, including the need to negotiate a bailout for Cyprus, reducing high national debt in some countries as well as crushing unemployment, and growing opposition to austerity in some eurozone countries.

Cyprus is seeking rescue loans of about (EURO)17 billion ($22.6 billion) - almost equivalent to its annual gross domestic product. About (EURO)10 billion would shore up the country's ailing banks, with the remainder meant to keep the government afloat.

The bailout could push Cyprus' debt to 150 percent of gross domestic product, a level economists consider unsustainable for such a small economy.

In creditor nations such as Germany, Europe's biggest economy, the bailout has been met with skepticism amid allegations that Cypriot banks have helped launder Russian money and facilitated tax evasion.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that it was unclear whether there would be a bailout at all, because it wasn't clear if a Cypriot bankruptcy "would endanger the eurozone as a whole at all."

If Europe and the International Monetary Fund balk at bailing out Cyprus, which accounts for only 0.19 percent of the eurozone's economy, the country could face bankruptcy within months, possibly forcing it to leave the eurozone.

EU-Digest