Hubert Ansiaux

Nationality

Belgium

Date of Birth

Date of Death

Political
Preference

Hubert Ansiaux was a Belgian banker and financial expert. Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, Ansiaux worked for the National Bank of Belgium (NBB). During the war, he came to work for Finance Minister Camille Gutt, and he became involved in the negotiations for the Benelux, as well as broader discussions about post-war monetary reconstruction between the Allies at the U.K. Treasury in 1942 and 1943.

After the war, from 1946 to 1948, Ansiaux worked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where he argued for the convertibility of currencies. When the negotiations for the European Recovery Program (ERP) started in Paris in 1947, Ansiaux was called on by the Belgian government to represent his country. In the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) that was created in 1948, Ansiaux was nominated as the chairman of the Intra-European Payments Committee, which he remained until 1955.

From this position, he would play an important role in the negotiations that led up to the creation of the European Payments Union (EPU) in 1950, for he headed the Group of Financial Experts that was responsible for sketching the general functions and outline of the future EPU in December 1949 (based on plans that were advanced by the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) and the OEEC Secretariat headed by Robert Marjolin).

From 1957 to 1971, Ansiaux was the governor of the National Bank of Belgium.