德国总理默克尔为什么希望IMF拉加德出任欧盟主席？

    如今的欧洲已经不再是几年前那个毫无希望的人。但一点点经济增长、一大堆债务、大批失业的年轻人和欧元怀疑论不断升温，欧盟往好了说也仍旧困难重重。

    如果上面这些还说得不够清楚，换句话说，欧盟还需要一位强大的领袖。

    理论上欧洲有一个最高职位，一位真正的领袖可以在这个位置上施展权威，廓清迷雾，行使绝对权力——这个职位就是欧盟委员会（European Commission）主席一职。

    但事实上，欧洲根本没有这样一个职位。这可以解释为什么只有他的直系近亲与布鲁塞尔的几位官员明确知道目前的欧盟委员会主席到底是谁。（他就是若泽-曼努埃尔•巴罗佐，葡萄牙前总理，法学教授，曾在美国乔治敦大学求学。）

    由此，人们将目标投向了国际货币基金组织总裁克里斯蒂娜•拉加德，2014年《财富》全球50位领导力榜样排行榜排名第13。有些人希望，今年晚些时候现任欧盟主席结束第二个5年任期后，拉加德能成为候选人，负责管理欧盟立法和执法机构。

    显然，德国总理安吉拉•默克尔就是这样的一位支持者（默克尔在《财富》全球50为领导力榜样榜单中排名第二）。报道称，她力推拉加德竞争这个职位。

    Europe is not quite the basket case it was a few years ago. But with low-as-you-can-go-growth, mounds of debt, throngs of unemployed youth and a rising tide of Euroskepticism, the European Union, to put it kindly, is still in a tough spot.

    As if the above didn’t make it obvious already, it’s also in need of a strong leader.

    In theory, Europe has a spot at the top in which a real leader might sit and wield some gavel of authority, clarity, and resolute power—and that is the high office of President of the European Commission.

    In reality, Europe has nothing of the kind. Which would explain why few but his immediate family and a handful of bureaucrats in Brussels know precisely who the current holder of that office is. (For the record, it’s Jose-Manuel Barroso, a former Prime Minister of Portugal, law professor, and one-time student at Georgetown.)

    All of which brings us to Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and No. 13 on Fortune’s 2014 list of the 50 World’s Greatest Leaders. There are some who now hope that Lagarde will emerge as a candidate for the European Commission presidency—whose role is to oversee the body that proposes and enforces EU laws—when the current office-holder’s second five-year term ends later this year.

    One such booster, apparently, is Angela Merkel, Germany’s well-regarded Chancellor (and No. 2 on Fortune’s World’s Greatest Leader list), who reportedly pressed Lagarde to run for the job.