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| Wim Duisenberg, the former European Central Bank
chief who helped create the euro currency, was found dead Sunday
in his swimming pool in southeastern
France. |
Wim Duisenberg, the former European Central Bank chief who helped
create the euro currency, was found dead Sunday in his swimming pool in
southeastern France, officials said. He was 70.
An autopsy showed Duisenberg had drowned after an unspecified cardiac
problem, a regional prosecutor said. He was found unconscious in the
swimming pool at his home in the town of Faucon and could not be
resuscitated, police said.
Duisenberg “died a natural death, due to drowning, after a cardiac
problem,” said Jean-Francois Sanpieri, a state prosecutor in the nearby
town of Carpentras. He did not give further details about the autopsy.
Duisenberg was the first head of the ECB, serving
from 1998 to 2003. Having shepherded
the euro through its introduction in 1999, he became
known as the father of the 12-nation European common currency.
“With his calm manner, he established people’s basic trust in the
euro,” German Finance Minister Hans Eichel told The Associated Press in
Berlin. “We will remember his personality and what he achieved.”
Tall and stoop-shouldered, with a large mane of
white hair, Duisenberg sometimes appeared more of a professor than a heavyweight
policy-maker. A
chain-smoking golf lover, he kept a decidedly low profile as the ECB chief
but was a major figurehead bearing overall responsibility for price
stability in the euro zone of more than 300 million people.
During his tenure at the bank, Duisenberg was known for his cautious
monetary policy and was eager to defend the euro through its early years.
He sometimes frustrated financial markets and
politicians by sticking to the bank’s inflation-fighting stance, keeping rates higher than some investors and officials
would have liked.
(Agencies) | 
Updated: 2005-08-01 10:55
