European Union Budget Commissioner Guenther Oettinger holds a news conference to present the EU executive's final proposal for the bloc's next long-term budget, in Brussels, Belgium, May 2, 2018. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

BERLIN (Reuters) - European Commissioner Guenther Oettinger is in favor of a French person taking the helm at the European Central Bank when President Mario Draghi’s term expires in October 2019, a German newspaper reported.

“It would be best to have a German European Commission President and a clever Frenchman as head of the ECB,” business daily Handelsblatt cited Oettinger as saying.