The race to succeed European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde is set to enter a new phase on Friday with a deadline revealing the field of candidates.

Spain and the Netherlands have already signaled plans to propose their respective former central-bank chiefs, Pablo Hernandez de Cos and Klaas Knot, while officials still hold out the possibility of another name emerging either now or in due course. The deadline for nominations is 5 p.m. Brussels time.

Crucial to the selection will be agreement between the leaders of the region’s two biggest economies, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his French counterpart, President Emmanuel Macron. Added unknowns include the need for consensus with frayed coalition partners in Berlin, along with persisting political gridlock in Paris.

Past ECB presidency contests suggest it would be unusual if European Union governments end up easily agreeing over which individual should lead monetary policy in a currency area of more than 350 million people.

Against that backdrop, even after the call for nominations by the euro zone’s club of finance ministers closes, a surprise late-stage candidate could still turn up when political horse-trading begins in earnest, much as Lagarde herself did back in 2019.

Further complicating the contest is the likelihood of what Greece’s prime minister has called a “grand bargain” over the job and two other impending vacancies at the central bank, those of Executive Board members Isabel Schnabel and Philip Lane.

The moving parts make it hard to map out the choreography of the ECB presidency selection between now and Lagarde’s announced exit on Feb. 7. The calendar of coming weeks does however feature potentially pivotal gatherings.

Firstly, the euro zone’s 21 finance ministers will take stock of candidates at a meeting on Monday. The final decision rests with European leaders however.

That puts the spotlight on an informal summit scheduled for Nov. 13 and a special one on Nov. 26-27. Nothing precludes pivotal phone calls or handshakes in between.

If any agreement encompasses a broader package, then perhaps the Nov. 27 deadline for nominations to succeed German economist Schnabel in January becomes relevant. That was previously Oct. 28, before being put back by a month to allow more time.

Then again, no date has been set for candidates to succeed Ireland’s Lane as chief economist, even though the ECB last week formally asked governments to start seeking names.

France appears keen to get his position and is well prepared. It can pick from candidates including Bank of France Deputy Governor Agnès Bénassy-Quéré and former OECD official Laurence Boone.

Such options are important given that, alongside balancing large and small countries, north and south, and hawkish and dovish positions, the ECB needs women. Its six-member Executive Board currently has only two, Lagarde and Schnabel. The rest are men, as is the remainder of the ECB’s 27-member Governing Council.

Germany’s coalition has yet to agree on a candidate to replace Schnabel, with former International Monetary Fund official Tobias Adrian and Bundesbank Vice President Sabine Mauderer among those in the running.

Berlin’s choice will reverberate on the selection of Lagarde’s successor because if the Germans favor de Cos, they’d probably need to nominate a female candidate to maintain the board’s current gender status quo.

Proposing a man to fill Schnabel’s seat could therefore aid Knot’s candidacy, forcing Frank Elderson to resign to avoid two Dutch Executive Board members, and creating an opening for a female candidate proposed by Madrid.

Merz and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil have already each met Knot and de Cos, according to people familiar with the process.

“If it’s needed, we will come to a very quick solution on the board,” Merz told Bloomberg Television last month, before Lagarde announced her resignation.