EU monetary affairs commissioner Pedro Solbes last night said he had accepted the post of finance minister in Spain's incoming Socialist government, following a meeting with prime minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Solbes, 61, will also serve as second deputy prime minister, Socialist party sources said.
European Commission chief Romano Prodi had earlier said that he was ready for Solbes' possible resignation, saying the two had had 'exchanges of views covering this possibility'.
At his post in Brussels, Solbes was charged with overseeing the rules underpinning Europe's single currency. His name was floated in recent days for Spain's chief finance post following the Socialists' surprise win in elections three days after the devastating Madrid bomb blasts.
Solbes, before his nearly five-year tenure as an EU commissioner, served in several Spanish ministerial posts in the government of former prime minister Felipe Gonzalez, also a Socialist.
He was Spain's agriculture minister from 1991 until 1993, then minister for economic and financial affairs beginning in 1993. He lost that post in 1996, when Gonzalez's Socialists were swept from power by the conservative Popular Party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.
Solbes was also a key player during Spain's negotiations in the 1980s ahead of the country's entry in the European Union.
