The controversial nomination of the Spanish finance minister as the next Vice-President of the European Central Bank has drawn fury from GUE/NGL’s MEPs in a committee vote today.

Left MEPs in the Parliament’s economic committee voted against Luis de Guindos today, deeming him unfit for the role. Fourteen MEPs abstained but the vote was carried thanks to the EPP bloc that counts de Gunidos’s own Partido Popular as members.

Even ECB officials have expressed concerns over de Guindos’s political neutrality in going directly from a member state ministry to Frankfurt without a cooling-off period.

GUE/NGL’s Paloma López was scathing about de Guindos’s credentials:

“We voted against this nomination because Luis de Guindos has zero independence and is politically biased. He has been instrumental in deepening the economic crisis by strictly following the orders of Brussels and Frankfurt. He is also well known for having close ties with the financial sector as a finance minister. He is therefore anything but neutral.”

“But more importantly, we voted against in solidarity with the European workers who have suffered greatly under de Guindos.  His nomination is bad for Europeans as he is the poster child of cuts and austerity,” she argued.

Spanish MEP Miguel Urbán is equally angry:

“Once again, the myth of the supposed independence of the European Central Bank has been exposed as a lie.”

“We have a candidate plugged straight out of a member state government – one with zero experience of working at a national central bank. A candidate borne out of a political horse-trading.”

“Furthermore, de Guindos was the one who assured Spanish taxpayers that they wouldn’t have to pay anything for rescuing their banks – but ended up costing us 42 billion euros!”

“We therefore cannot support de Guindos’s candidacy as the future ECB Vice President,” Urbán said.