WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush nominated former diplomat and trade chief Robert Zoellick on Wednesday to head the World Bank after a favoritism scandal forced out Paul Wolfowitz.

"I am pleased to announce that I will nominate Bob Zoellick to be the 11th president of the World Bank," Bush said in a formal announcement at the White House.

"Bob Zoellick has had a long and distinguished career in diplomacy and development economics. It has prepared him well for this new assignment," said the US president.

"He is a comitted internationalist."

The World Bank's 24-member board of governors must approve the nomination of Zoellick, a vice chairman at Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs.

But by proposing Zoellick, 53, a consensus-builder on issues ranging from global trade to strife in Darfur, Bush is seeking to end the furor that rocked the World Bank for weeks over Wolfowitz.

Wolfowitz agreed on May 17 to step down on June 30 to end a scandal over a generous pay-and-promotion package he arranged for his companion, a bank employee.

His two-year tenure at the poverty-fighting bank also was marked by strong criticism of his agenda for fighting corruption and an insular management style that relied on a coterie of Bush allies.

Zoellick's nomination could well raise eyebrows among European countries that were disappointed by Bush's backing in 2005 of Wolfowitz, a former deputy defense secretary and Iraq war architect.

But while Zoellick also backed military action to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, initial reactions to his likely candidacy signaled Tuesday have been enthusiastic.

WTO chief Pascal Lamy welcomed the likely nomination of a man he knew from the other side of the negotiating table at the 2001 launch of the Doha Round of international trade negotiations, when Lamy was the European Union trade commissioner and Zoellick his US counterpart.

"I've known Bob Zoellick for more than two decades. I've always appreciated his talent as a craftsman of consensus and his ability to extend a hand to developing countries," World Trade Organization chief Lamy told AFP.

France, which spearheaded international opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, also welcomed Bush's candidate.

"Mr. Zoellick is certainly the right man for the job," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Wednesday.

Kouchner added, however, that Zoellick would have to regain the trust of the international community following the Wolfowitz scandal.

"He has to establish or rather reestablish confidence in the institution because it was a dark chapter with Wolfowitz," he told reporters before a meeting of foreign ministers of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Germany.

By tradition, the United States, as the biggest contributor, names the head of the multilateral bank. European countries select the head of its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund.

The European Commission gave no official reaction to the news, but one EU diplomat said that "Bob Zoellick clearly has the essential qualifications" to run the World Bank and also had "the qualities to improve the morale of the World Bank's teams, which are going through a difficult period."

Canada's former foreign and international trade minister Pierre Pettigrew also hailed Zoellick as "the man of the moment," describing him as "one of the most internationalist Americans for a long time."

Zoellick left the State Department's number-two post in June 2006 to join Goldman Sachs after making his mark on international trade issues and sensitive relations with China.

He became Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's deputy in February 2005, after serving four years as the US Trade Representative.

- AFP /ls