The man who heads the 16 countries that use the euro currency -- the economic engine at the heart of continental Europe -- announced Tuesday that he wants a new, two-and-a-half year mandate in charge.
Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, Europe's longest-serving national leader, will present himself for re-election by his peers in January after missing out on his bid to be named the European Union's first president.
If elected, the job, formalised under the bloc's reforming Lisbon Treaty which entered into force earlier Tuesday after years stuck in a logjam of referendums and opt-outs, will see Juncker guide monetary policy through until 2012.
Juncker is so far unopposed, and said both French finance minister Christine Lagarde -- a runner in the event of Juncker acceding to the top Brussels job claimed by then Belgian premier Herman Van Rompuy -- and Germany's Wolfgang Schauble had given him their backing.
"I announced to my colleagues that I was to be a candidate to succeed myself," Juncker told a press conference after a eurogroup meeting on the eve of a European Union finance ministers gathering in Brussels.
"At this point, thare no other candidates... There was a broad agreement on the proposition I put forward... there were no vehement protests, on the contrary, encouraging comments," he added.
Juncker was first placed in charge of the group -- which acquires ever greater autonomy under Lisbon -- in January 2005 and won a new two-year mandate in 2008 which was not due to expire until later next year.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy was said by diplomats to have blocked Juncker's bid for Van Rompuy's post, Paris having accused Juncker of being too slow to react in late 2008 to the onset of the global financial crisis.
