A German member of the ECB's board of directors leaves his post due to a loose monetary policy

Germany's representative on the board of directors of the European Central Bank has resigned, highlighting the growing gap between the highest ranks of the institution following its recent decision to ease monetary policy.

The resignation of Sabine Lautenschläger suggests deep divisions within the ECB and raises the crucial question of who will choose Germany to replace her at a time when the bank's low interest rate policies central cause strong criticism in the country.

Ms Lautenschläger joined the Executive Board of the ECB in January 2014 for an eight-year term. She was recently replaced as Vice-Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the ECB's Single Supervisory Mechanism, which oversees the largest banks in the euro area after a five-year period.

Her departure, which eliminates the only woman member of the ECB's 25-member Governing Council, comes just weeks before Mario Draghi was appointed to Christine Lagarde as president on 1 November.

Earlier this month, Draghi elicited an unusual opposition from a minority of members of the Governing Council after announcing a reduction in the ECB's deposit rate to a record -0.5% and restarting its bond buying program by 2.6 million euro break months.

Ms Lautenschläger is one of the main hawks on the board and was one of the few members who spoke at the meeting two weeks ago to oppose the restart of the bond purchase system. the ECB.

In the two weeks following the meeting, the leaders of the German, French, Dutch and Austrian central banks all publicly expressed their opposition to the ECB's latest decision. Together, these countries account for more than half of the overall GDP of the euro area.

Ms Lautenschläger is not the first German representative of the ECB's governing board to resign after disagreeing with her dovish monetary policy. In 2011, Jürgen Stark resigned in protest of central bank purchases of government bonds in response to the eurozone debt crisis. Earlier that year, Axel Weber left the head of the German Bundesbank after fiercely opposing the ECB's strategy.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the ECB said: "The president, Mario Draghi, thanked him for his decisive role in setting up and overseeing bank supervision at the European level. , essential pillar of the banking union, as well as for its unwavering commitment to Europe. "

Frederik Ducrozet, an economist at Pictet Wealth Management, said in a tweet that the departure of Ms Lautenschläger meant for the moment that there was no German in the executive council and no woman in the 25-member board of governors . "The choice of Berlin will be crucial at all levels."

Mr Ducrozet added that Isabel Schnabel, professor of financial economics at the University of Bonn and one of five members of the Council of Economic Experts of Germany, "would be quite appropriate". Claudia Buch, Vice President of the German Central Bank, is another potential candidate.