The ministers, meeting in Brussels, appointed Dijsselbloem to take over from Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker as the head of the influential group of policymakers, which comprises the 17 finance ministers from the euro zone countries.

Dijsselbloem told his colleagues on Monday he wanted to move on from simply fighting crises and focus on longer-term policies to boost fledgling confidence and restore growth, and that he saw an enhanced role for his new task.

(Reporting by Annika Breidthardt; writing by Rex Merrifield)