The governors of the European Investment Bank (EIB) - the 27 finance ministers of the European Union - and the bank’s Board of Directors confirmed the appointment of Werner Hoyer as EIB president at the end of December 2011. Hoyer took up his duties as EIB president on 1 January 2012, succeeding Belgian national Philippe Maystadt, who headed the EIB for 12 years. Hoyer is the EIB’s seventh president since the institution’s founding in 1958. Hoyer is minister of state at the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany as well as a member of the Bundestag (German parliament). He is also Germany’s commissioner for Franco-German cooperation.