SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELLA, Sept 15 (Reuters) - European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde defended on Friday the bank's pick to head its bank supervision arm, despite the European Parliament's preference for a rival candidate to oversee a 26 trillion euro banking sector. Lagarde said that the 26-member Governing Council, who selected Buch, took the committee's opinion into account but noted that the committee had no veto but merely an opportunity to formulate an opinion. Once that opinion was received, policymakers followed the letter of the law in the selection process, Lagarde added. The key point of contention is that Buch has relatively limited experience in bank supervision, having joined the ECB's Supervisory Board only this year, while Delgado has spent decades in the field. Buch must now go back to the same committee for a public hearing, tentatively scheduled for 0800 GMT on Wednesday.

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Persons: SANTIAGO, Christine Lagarde, Claudia Buch, Margarita Delgado, Buch, Lagarde, Delgado, Jan Strupczewski, Balazs Koranyi, Chizu Organizations: SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELLA, Central Bank, ECB, Bank of Spain, Economic, Monetary Affairs, ECB's, Thomson Locations: Bank