LONDON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - European politicians should not interfere in how the next chief of a global accounting rule setting board will be selected, the board's current chairman said on Thursday.
David Tweedie, chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), which sets accounting rules used in over 100 countries, including the EU, said the selection of his successor should be dealt with solely by the IASB's trustees.
"If everyone wants to have their say, in the end, no one has a say," Tweedie told the FT Deutschland newspaper.
Tweedie is annoyed that the European Union's executive European Commission was seeking to influence the selection process, the newspaper said.
Tweedie steps down in June 2011 and the trustees are expected to name his successor next month.
Ian Mackintosh, current chairman of Britain's Accounting Standards Board, was favoured to get the top job, the newspaper said. The ASB had no immediate comment.
Mackintosh is from New Zealand and has spent much of his career in Australia.
The IASB is facing some pressure to select a non-European head after the board has been criticised for being too easily influenced by EU finance ministers and the European Commission on amending a key rule at the height of the financial crisis.
As the world's accounting rules are converged into a single global set of rules, essentially by meshing the IASB's rules with those of its U.S. counterpart, the IASB will become an even more powerful body.
Tweedie said the goal of converging U.S. and international accounting systems was still worthwhile but would require a philosophical change among his colleagues.
"The Americans now face the decisive question of whether they want to give up sovereignty," he said.
"Without the United States, there can be no global standards," he said, adding that the decision of his U.S. counterpart Robert Herz to step down as chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board was a "great loss". [ID:nN24274074]
Tweedie ruled out meeting the target set by the Group of 20 emerging and developed nations for bringing accounting systems together next year.
"The G20 deadline of mid-2011 is no longer achievable" Tweedie told the paper. "It simply cannot be done."