#Eurozone #saviors #brought #Italys #recalcitrant #parties
Mario Draghi, who as head of the European Central Bank is credited with helping to save the eurozone, presided over a remarkable period of unity as Italy’s prime minister before falling afoul of its notoriously unstable political system.
The star economist was never directly elected, but won the support of almost all political parties when he took office in February 2021, raising Italy’s profile on the international stage as a respected leader in the European Union and the G7.
He was tasked with tackling the coronavirus pandemic and the fallout from a recession in Europe’s third-largest economy as Italy received a large chunk of an unprecedented billion-euro EU recovery package to boost growth.
He rejected Italy’s long-standing ties with Moscow, firmly opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and played a key role within the EU in backing Kiev’s bid to join the bloc.
Enjoying rising personal popularity and the confidence of Brussels and the financial markets, Draghi was seen as the best bet to revitalize a sluggish economy plagued by structural inefficiencies and a punitive bureaucracy by initiating structural reforms long marred by power struggles and inertia were delayed.
But with elections scheduled for next year, his coalition parties grew increasingly restless, and Draghi’s stern warnings to stop political games went unheeded.
Three parties in his coalition refused to take part in a vote of confidence on Wednesday and pulled the plug on the government.
Draghi submitted his resignation to Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella on Thursday morning.
– Basketball and Banking –
Born on September 3, 1947 in Rome to a wealthy family, Draghi lost both parents when he was a teenager, leaving him to care for two younger siblings.
As a young man he was never a rebel, although he sympathized with the 1968 protest movement. “My hair was quite long, but not very long,” he told German magazine Die Zeit in 2015.
Draghi was educated in an elite Jesuit-run high school, where he excelled in math, Latin and basketball, and shared classes with the likes of former Ferrari boss Luca Cordero di Montezemolo.
Draghi, who is married with two children, remains a practicing Catholic.
In 1970, Draghi graduated with a degree in economics with a thesis arguing that the single currency was “a madness, something that should by no means be done” – a view that later developed further when he became one of the strongest proponents of the euros.
He received his PhD from the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States and taught economics at several Italian universities.
After spending six years at the World Bank from 1984 to 1990, he headed the Treasury Department of Italy’s Economy Ministry for a decade, working under nine different governments.
From this position, Draghi led large-scale privatizations and contributed to deficit-cutting efforts that helped Italy qualify for the euro.
– No bad compromises –
In 2002, Draghi joined Goldman Sachs’ board of directors before being appointed to head the Bank of Italy three years later following a scandal surrounding its former boss Antonio Fazio.
He was appointed head of the European Central Bank (ECB) in November 2011 when a near-bankruptcy situation in Italy threatened to trigger the collapse of the entire eurozone.
A year later, Draghi changed the story by promising to do “everything to save the euro”, adding: “And believe me, it will do.”
He was credited with helping save the single currency. This bailout, however, came only with the help of hefty cash injections and historically low interest rates – which earned him the wrath of conservatives, particularly in Germany.
People who’ve seen “Super Mario” at work at the ECB say he’s a skilled negotiator with sharp political antennae and willing to play the “bad cop” to sway decisions in his favour, a former adviser said to AFP.
Draghi is someone who doesn’t accept “lame compromises” in order to maintain consensus, the adviser said.
After leaving the ECB in 2019, Draghi lay down and spent most of Italy’s coronavirus lockdown at his country home in central Umbria.
He was appointed to head Italy by President Sergio Mattarella after Giuseppe Conte’s previous government fell into internal fighting in January 2021.
He had been proposed to succeed Mattarella during the presidential election in Parliament earlier this year, but in the end Mattarella was recalled to a second term after lawmakers failed to agree on someone else.
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