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UPDATE 1-Juncker to decide Eurogroup role after June polls

Published 04/30/2009, 05:15 AM

(Recasts with Juncker spokesman comments)

BRUSSELS/BERLIN, April 30 (Reuters) - Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker will see if he can continue as chairman of euro zone finance ministers after June general elections in Luxembourg, his spokesman said on Thursday.

Spokesman Guy Schuller denied a report in German daily Handelsblatt that Juncker could quit his role as Eurogroup head due to a conflict with Berlin and Paris over tax havens.

"The whole tax havens debate has nothing to do with the Eurogroup. The Eurogroup is not debating these things. That is Ecofin business. He is not at all threatening to quit over that," Schuller said.

The Eurogroup usually meets immediately before Ecofin, the wider group of all 27 European Union finance ministers.

Handelsblatt said one reason Juncker could opt to step aside was a conflict with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy over tax havens.

Juncker, who is also Luxembourg finance minister, was angered by a push by Merkel and Sarkozy for the OECD to compile a "grey list" of tax havens which included Luxembourg, as well as fellow EU states Austria and Belgium, the newspaper said.

"The only thing that could serve as an argument that Mr Juncker may step down as chairman of the Eurogroup is that he has general elections on June 7 in Luxembourg," Schuller said.

"That is what he told euro zone finance ministers in Nice in September 2008, when he was re-elected for a third term," Schuller said. "He has said he may not be able to finish the mandate because he may not be finance minister after the general elections."

"If he is re-appointed finance minister in the next government in this country he will stay on and finish his mandate as president of the Eurogroup," he said.

The Eurogroup is a monthly informal meeting of the euro zone's 16 finance ministers and the European Central Bank which discusses economic policy in the common currency area.

Its chairman is appointed for two years. Juncker's third term will end on Dec 31, 2010, if he is re-appointed finance minister after the June elections.

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski and Noah Barkin in Berlin; editing by David Stamp)

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