Awwal 08, 1432, Feb 11, 2011, SPA -- The head of Germany's central bank was to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday amid speculation that he won't pursue the European Central Bank's top job, AP reported. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters that Merkel and Axel Weber would meet behind closed doors, then issue a written statement. Weber, 53, indicated earlier this week he may not seek a new eight-year term at the Bundesbank when his current one expires next year. That touched off speculation that he was out of the running for the ECB's presidency, which will need to be filled when Jean-Claude Trichet's term expires in October. Weber was long viewed as a front-runner to become the next president of the ECB, which sets interest rates for the 17 countries that use the shared euro currency. Weber said Thursday said any decisions on his future would be made in «close coordination» with Merkel. He then canceled a planned appearance at a high-level Franco-German economic summit Friday. The German government has never officially thrown Weber's hat in the ring as a candidate for the ECB job. And German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble in Friday reiterated the government's stance that it was too early to discuss Trichet's succession. He insisted the next summit of the European Union's leaders in March first has to decide on a proposed «comprehensive package» of structural reforms to buttress the eurozone's stability. «We have said we now want to resolve the questions of institutional reforms of the eurogroup,» he said at a news conference in Berlin alongside his French counterpart. «Once they are solved, then we can move on to the question of who would be the best possible candidate for the succession of the ECB's president. Not earlier.» Germany, Europe's biggest economy and increasingly its paymaster amid the sovereign debt crisis, has been widely viewed as wanting the ECB's top job. Schaueble, however, said «Germany has never declared that it insists on a German candidate.» Weber is an advocate of tough steps to prevent inflation, in line with the Bundesbank's tradition. He has voiced unease over the ECB's program, launched last year, to buy bonds of troubled eurozone countries and has called for the program to be stopped. -- SPA
