FILE PHOTO: Mario Draghi, President of the European central Bank (ECB) attends a news conference on the outcome of the Governing Council meeting at the ECB headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, March 7, 2019. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank will appoint someone to become the euro zone’s second-most senior banking watchdog “in the coming weeks”, ECB President Mario Draghi said on Thursday.

The post of vice chair of the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism has been vacant for nearly a month after Draghi failed to propose a successor to Sabine Lautenschlaeger, and other roles at the SSM have also been left open.

“It’s a process which will be carried out in a completely transparent way in the coming weeks, and it’s with a change in the chair and so on, so everything has been delayed. But it will take place soon,” Draghi told reporters after an ECB policy meeting.

The candidate for vice chair must be chosen from among the ECB’s six board members, and both Yves Mersch and vice-president Luis de Guindos are believed to be interested in the job.