(adds European Commission spokeswoman) By Lesley Wroughton and Paul Taylor WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS, June 29 (Reuters) - The European Union on Thursday staked its claim to nominate the next head of the IMF, spurning calls for the search for a new managing director to widen beyond Europe following Rodrigo Rato's surprise resignation. Spaniard Rato said on Thursday he would step down for personal reasons in October after just over three years in the job, which has a five-year tenure. Europe has provided all the IMF's leaders since the Fund's inception after World War Two in 1945. Similarly, the World Bank is by convention headed by an American, shutting out Japan and developing countries. "We hope that the EU will identify a suitable successor candidate in due time so as to ensure the important reform process that has been started at the IMF will be taken to a good port and at a good time," a spokeswoman for European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said. Rato's resignation came just weeks after debate raged over the selection of the next president of the IMF's sister organisation, the World Bank, following the resignation of Paul Wolfowitz over his promotion of a companion. El Pais and other Spanish media said Rato took the decision to stand down some time ago but kept it quiet until the storm at the World Bank blew over. Both financial institutions, whose biggest contributors are the United States and Europe, are under pressure to give more say to emerging countries in how they are run. A European financial official said: "I would be rather surprised if, so soon after the United States put one of their own at the World Bank, all of a sudden the whole arrangement were called into question." Two European central bank governors mentioned as possible successors -- Mervyn King of the Bank of England and Mario Draghi of the Bank of Italy -- ruled themselves out. The IMF has started a reform process it hopes will give a bigger voice to the rest of the world, so opening up the selection of Rato's replacement to non-Europeans would be critical, an IMF board official from a developing country said. "It will be important for the credibility of that reform process that the selection process is opened up to candidates other than a European," the official told Reuters. TIME TO CHANGE? The ousting of Wolfowitz challenged the U.S. leadership of the poverty-fighting World Bank. But the board of member states last week still unanimously chose another American for the job, approving U.S. former secretary of state, Robert Zoellick, who starts on July 1. IMF commentators and development groups said it was time to change the long tradition of a European heading the IMF. "Rather than limiting the search to Europe, the governors of the IMF should open up the playing field and draw on the expertise of leaders in developing countries," said Bernice Romero, Oxfam International's advocacy and campaigns director. Kenneth Rogoff, a former IMF chief economist and now a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, said he was worried that Washington would not press for change in the IMF selection process because European allies had backed Zoellick. "If anything good came out of the whole Wolfowitz debacle, it was the recognition that the days when the Americans hand-picked the head of the World Bank and the Europeans hand-picked the head of the IMF had come to an end," he said. "It would certainly be a shame if this was something that was done in the backroom as a political compromise and quality doesn't come into the equation," Rogoff added. While Rato's announcement was a surprise, there was already a flurry of speculation about possible successors. France's Jean Lemierre, who heads the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, was a prominent name. But Bank of England chief King said through a spokesman he wanted "to make absolutely clear he had no interest either now or in the future in becoming managing director". A Bank of Italy spokesman said Draghi was not interested in the IMF job either. Rato and his predecessor Horst Koehler, now Germany's president, have said that the selection of the next IMF leaders should be opened up and based on candidates' qualifications. Rato was selected as the IMF's chief three years ago despite a push by developing countries to open up the selection process by nominating a second candidate, Mohamed El Erian, for the job. (Additional reporting by Andrew Hay in Madrid, Emily Kaiser in Washington, Sumeet Desai in London, Noah Barkin in Berlin and Lucca Trogni in Milan)
