The finance ministers from the eurozone countries have agreed to create a unified constituency at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said on Monday. “We’ve come to an agreement on the constituency for the AIIB,” Dijsselbloem told reporters after monthly eurozone finance ministers’ meeting, saying it is “very good news”. The AIIB is a multilateral financial institution proposed by China. A number of 10 countries from the eurozone, namely Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain, have expressed their willingness to join the AIIB. It is expected that the AIIB would be operational by the end of this year. Therefore, the eurozone countries have been making efforts towards an agreement in principle on the setting up of a constituency of the members participating in the AIIB in recent months. “We discussed it last month, had a silent procedure; only Finland have said that they cannot enter the constituency at this point but the other countries will make a start with a eurozone constituency and we will now concentrate on setting up a constituency agreement,” Dijsselbloem introduced. Dijsselbloem said the work on the agreement will be done by the Eurozone Working Group (EWG), which groups eurozone deputy finance ministers Asfar.
