Mario Draghi, the ECB’s President, was pleading last Wednesday for a European Europe, in a closed-door session with a hostile group of German parliamentarians. He was fending off Berlin’s ceaseless attempts to capture the world’s only truly independent central bank.
Europeans are lucky to have a man of Dr. Draghi’s integrity and professional competence, a remarkable leader hailing from a country that is still home to Europe’s true believers.
Here is the background to this latest episode in the ECB’s long-running saga with German authorities.
Having thrown millions of Europeans into unemployment, poverty and destitution with the imposition of harsh fiscal austerity on countries already choking under recessionary pressures, Germany continues to challenge the ECB’s conduct of independent policies with instruments and credit intermediation channels that are strictly within its mandate.
