(CNN) -- With the historic launch of the European Union's common currency in January, the head of the new European Central Bank, Dutchman Wim Duisenberg, arguably will become one of the world's most powerful central bankers.

As chief of the ECB, Duisenberg's job is to oversee the introduction of the single currency, the euro, in 11 EU member states, which will form a market second only to that of the United States.

In terms of financial market clout, Duisenberg, 63, has already been compared to Alan Greenspan, the head of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

But analysts say only time will tell whether Duisenberg -- a former Dutch finance minister and former head of the Netherlands' central bank -- will have the same power and influence to move global financial markets.


Frankfurt's Eurotower houses the European Central Bank headquarters

Although he will be the ECB's president, Duisenberg has only one of 17 votes on the bank's board, which brings together representatives of the 11 nations taking part in the monetary union. The board also includes six directors.

Less than a month before the launch of the euro, Duisenberg indicated that he was still feeling his way as he entered a much bigger arena than before.

"I still have to get used to the intensity with which the world watches every word you say or every move you make," he said in a recent interview. Duisenberg has even sought Greenspan's advice on the power of language to shape financial markets.

Nevertheless, the lanky chain-smoker with a shock of white hair already has a reputation as a guarantor of monetary stability.

That reputation is largely due to Duisenberg's track record at the Dutch National Bank: During his 16 years at the helm of the institution, he turned the Netherlands into a significant economic power by strengthening the national currency, reducing interest rates and ultimately ushering in a period of economic stability.

After becoming Dutch central bank president, Duisenberg linked the Dutch currency, the guilder, tightly to the strong German deutschmark. That move helped significantly in turning the guilder into one of the strongest European currencies and transforming the economic "Dutch Disease" of the early 1980s into the "Dutch Miracle" of modern days.

Duisenberg has freely admitted that he admires German monetary policy and its ability to resist political pressure. Not least in light of such statements, critics say he is just a Bundesbank clone, unable to make independent decisions and content simply to take the lead from Germany, the world's third largest economy after the United States and Japan.

Despite such criticism, though, Duisenberg has not held back with his views on the kind of economic discipline he would like to see implemented to make monetary union a success.

When he headed a report outlining the budgetary discipline necessary for a stable and successful euro, Duisenberg did not shy away from pointing his finger at debt-ridden countries. He admonished them to step up their efforts to balance their national budgets.

"Money is my profession," he once said, and he has repeatedly underlined that he will fight for the political independence of the ECB, which alone will set monetary conditions and key interest rates in the countries participating in the euro.

Duisenberg's career has been stellar by any standards. He was born as Willem Frederik in Heerenveen, the Netherlands, on July 9, 1935. He studied economics at the University of Groningen, where he focused on international economic relations and got his Ph.D. in 1965 by writing a doctoral thesis on "economic consequences of disarmament."

That same year, he became a staff member of the International Monetary Fund in Washington. Following his return to the Netherlands in 1969, he taught macroeconomics at the University of Amsterdam. At the age of 38, he became finance minister in the cabinet of Social Democrat Prime Minister Joop den Uyl in 1973.


Minting of the first euro coins in Bordeaux, France in May

The golf-playing father of three with a love of literature took up his key post as head of the Dutch Central Bank in 1982, becoming the top guardian of national monetary policy. Holding that position until 1997, he then became president of the European Monetary Institute (EMI), the precursor to the ECB.

Despite his impressive track record and the backing of most EU leaders, Duisenberg's path to the 35th floor of the European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, was far from untroubled.

After serving as EMI's president, he was widely expected to become the ECB's first leader. Then France proposed a rival candidate: Jean-Claude Trichet, France's central banker and a good friend of Duisenberg's.

Although Duisenberg eventually was elected for a full eight-year term, the quarrel marred a moment of European history.

Immediately after his appointment, it was announced that Duisenberg would step down after four years under a "gentleman's agreement" brokered to end the rancorous row over who should get the job.

Duisenberg since has stated that no such agreement exists. And he is adamant that a four-year appointment violates the Maastricht Treaty, the 1992 blueprint for monetary union that calls for an independent central bank.

Meanwhile, Duisenberg has committed himself and his institution to transparency, saying that "in a democratic society, a central bank has to account for its policies."

Duisenberg is also learning to watch his words. In a carefully chosen reaction to a recent interest-rate cut by all but one of the 11 euro countries, Duisenberg described the cut as "rather sensational."

Greenspan would have been proud.

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