Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean Claude Juncker, who also holds his country's finance portfolio, has been reconfirmed as the Eurogroup president for the next two-and-a-half years.

All 16 eurozone member states, including Malta, approved Mr Juncker's appointment, the only nominee for the post who now goes into his third term.

Until last week, Malta had still not decided whether to support Mr Juncker since Italy was pushing Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti. However, Mr Tremonti decided not to contest once he realised there was no real support for his candidacy.

The Eurogroup, which meets once a month and embraces finance ministers of the EU countries that adopted the euro, plays an important role in coordinating economic and monetary policy in the eurozone and has been officially recognised by the new Lisbon Treaty.

The treaty provides that non-eurozone countries should be barred from voting in Ecofin, the EU's Council of Finance Ministers, on issues directly affecting the eurozone, such as the opening of an excessive deficit procedure against a eurozone member state.

Upon his appointment, Mr Juncker said ministers had agreed to an outline programme of work that includes more economic surveillance to tackle macro-economic imbalances and "enhanced" coordination of member states' economic policy.

Malta was represented during the Eurogroup meeting by Finance Minister Tonio Fenech.