WI: Mario Draghi never heads the ECB

[AndrewH]

Mario Draghi can justifiably claim to be one of the only men in living memory to change the course of history with a single sentence. At the height of the Eurozone crisis with actors across the board worried about the future of the Euro given high Spanish and Italian borrowing rates, Draghi said that the ECB would “do whatever it takes to preserve the Euro.” Working in tandem with Italian PM Mario Monti (worth noting that Draghi and Jean-Claude Trichet had tried to pressure Berlusconi into making massive public sector cuts to keep things stable), Draghi was successful in calming down sovereign debt markets and preserving the Eurozone. However, it can be said that this played a major part in fueling the rise of populist political movements like the M5S across Europe.

So, what would happen if Draghi didn’t get the job at the ECB? The other leading candidate at the time was German Bundesbank President Axel Weber, and Bloomberg reporting at the time described the internal race over the post as “chaos.” If Weber won (or a different candidate entirely), how would the ECB handle the crisis differently? Could we see a complete collapse of the Eurozone, or a failure less dramatic but still significantly destabilizing?

On a different note, Draghi’s been talked about as a possible PM far before 2021, and it’s not out of the question for him to take Monti’s role as a technocrat PM now that he’s not at the ECB. How would he handle the crisis and deal with Italian politics differently than Monti? Would he be more successful, and would you still see a M5S backlash with Draghi in charge in 2011 and 2012?

Paging @Lord Roem because I feel like I’m economically illiterate and I trust him on these sorts of things lol

 

[Alex Richards]

I genuinely don't think any ECB figure would have said anything different. Literally anything else essentially invites mass economic chaos and people pulling out of the Eurozone.

 

[Steve Brinson]

I genuinely don't think any ECB figure would have said anything different. Literally anything else essentially invites mass economic chaos and people pulling out of the Eurozone.

There’s a thought - as much as Draghi’s statement affected Southern European politics, it probably sounds even worse to the disaffected from the mouth of a German.

 

[AndrewH]

I genuinely don't think any ECB figure would have said anything different. Literally anything else essentially invites mass economic chaos and people pulling out of the Eurozone.

i wasn’t trying to make the WI about whether they would say the line Alex, it’s just a good lede

 

[Oppo]

There’s a thought - as much as Draghi’s statement affected Southern European politics, it probably sounds even worse to the disaffected from the mouth of a German.

If Berlusconi is able to have more success with his narrative of a Merkel-Sarkozy conspiracy, he could poll ahead of the Lega in the 2018 elections and remain leader of the centre-right. Of course, there would be more immediate effects in 2013, which was an equally wild election.