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Nadia, 50, is one of two women on the shortlist, along with managing director of the World Bank, Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva.
The others are Eurogroup president, Portuguese Mário Centeno and its former president, Dutch Jeroen Dijsselbloem, and governor of the Bank of Finland Olli Rehn.
Candidates will be interviewed between this coming Monday, July 29 and Friday, September 6, and it is expected that the new FMI president's name will be announced on October 4.
Mme Lagarde, the first woman to preside the FMI in its 75-year history, was due to continue in the role until July 2021, but she has just been nominated head of the European Central Bank (BCE), so she will leave before the end of her second five-year term of office.
According to the FMI's board of directors, the selection process for Lagarde's replacement will be 'open and based upon merit' and the successful candidate needs to have, as a priority, 'the required global presence to lead the Fund', which is 'at the heart of the global financial system'.
An unwritten procedure which started with the Bretton Woods agreements in 1944, through which the FMI and its sister organisation, the World Bank, were founded, involves the two largest first-world powers designating and sharing leadership of each.
The USA elects the president of the World Bank and the European Union chooses that of the FMI.
France's finance minister Bruno Le Maire said at the end of the G-7 summit in Chantilly that EU member States would work together to 'reach a consensus' on finding a successor to Lagarde and would field 'solid, credible' candidates to 'allow Europe to continue leading the FMI'.
The system has long been criticised by charities and emerging nations, who say the USA and the EU choosing leaders from among their countries is not representative of the global economy.
Nadia Calviño, an economics graduate from Madrid's Complutense University, was director-general for budgets for the European Commission until a year ago when she was chosen by the then new president of Spain, Pedro Sánchez (socialists, or PSOE) to be his business and economy minister.
Curiously, the name of the new FMI president – which could be Calviño's – will be announced the day after her 51st birthday.
NEW legislation aiming to protect the public from telephone scams and cold-calling is under construction, and will attempt to attack it at source by tightening up on commercial use of customers' personal data.
INTEREST rates in the Eurozone could fall to 2.5% next year, having closed August 2024 on 3.75%, according to latest research.
GRANTS of up to €250 are available this year for replacing older air-conditioning units in a bid to encourage greater energy efficiency.
TWO of Spain's largest high-street banks are reported to be in merger talks, potentially resulting in the joint entity being the second-biggest in the country in terms of share capital.