Welcome to the theater of the absurd, where a job interview in Frankfurt is treated like a lunar landing. The latest dispatch from the 'Please Notice Us' department comes from Riga, where the Greens and Farmers Union is currently hyperventilating over the possibility of Bank of Latvia Governor Mārtiņš Kazaks landing a seat as Vice-President of the European Central Bank.

Apparently, in the world of mid-tier European politics, one man moving his pens from a desk in Riga to a desk in Germany is a 'national honor.' It’s a fascinating bit of alchemy, really. You take a standard career advancement for a high-level technocrat and spin it into a victory for the common farmer. I’m sure the people currently paying four euros for a loaf of bread are thrilled to know that their central banker might soon be making decisions from a slightly more prestigious ivory tower.

A Greens/Farmers MP—who I assume was standing near a flag while saying this to maximize the gravitas—called it an 'opportunity for Latvia.' Let’s be clear about what that opportunity is: it’s the opportunity for Latvian politicians to mention the ECB in press releases without people immediately falling asleep. It’s the opportunity to pretend that having 'one of our guys' in the room means the Eurozone’s crushing interest rate hikes will somehow feel more 'patriotic.'

This is the quintessential performative dance of the small-state politician. When you can’t fix the local economy, you celebrate the fact that one of your exports is a guy in a well-tailored suit. Kazaks is a capable enough banker, sure, but let’s not pretend his promotion is a win for the Latvian GDP. It’s a win for Kazaks’ pension plan and the LinkedIn profile of the person who gets to say they knew him back when he only managed a national currency that doesn't exist anymore.

If Kazaks gets the gig, he won’t be representing Latvia; he’ll be representing the cold, hard logic of the Eurosystem. But don't tell the MPs in Riga that. They need this. They need to believe that a seat at the big table in Frankfurt means Latvia has finally 'arrived,' rather than just acknowledging that the revolving door of global finance has simply completed another satisfying click.