This month marks ten years since the end of the eurozone debt crisis, but the champagne corks will not be popped because the anniversary could mark the start of a new crisis. The prime minister of the 67th government in the history of the Republic of Italy, Mario Draghi, a world-renowned banker, once declared the "savior of the euro", has decided to resign. Eighteen months ago, the president of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, entrusted him with the mandate of a savior in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic in Italy, during which hospitals were overwhelmed and local crematoriums in the north of Italy were overcrowded. The pandemic brought down the government of Giuseppe Conte, the leader of the Five Star Movement, which had been in coalition with the far-right League, led by Matteo Salvini, since 2018.
More than two-thirds of MPs voted for Draghi's government in both houses at the time, which was unheard of since the dominance of the Christian Democratic Party, from World War II to the early 1990s. The government received the support of the right-wing League, Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, the left-center Democratic Party, the Italia Viva party and the left-wing Five Star Movement, within which, admittedly, part of the parliamentarians considered it a mistake to support a prominent representative of the international economic and financial establishment.
At the time of the inauguration, Draghi was called Super Mario by some media. "Forbes" magazine declared him the eighth most influential man in the world, and "Fortune" magazine declared him "the second greatest leader in the world" (Tim Cook, who succeeded Steve Jobs at the head of Apple, was named the first).
In his long career, the 74-year-old academic economist Mario Draghi worked for the World Bank, the Ministry of Finance of Italy, and was the Director General of the Italian Treasury. He then worked at the Goldman Sachs bank, until he was appointed governor of the Bank of Italy in 2006. When the 2008 recession hit, he was elected at the G20 summit as the first chairman of the Financial Stability Board, set up to oversee the global financial system. In 2011, the European Council nominated him as the president of the European Central Bank, which he presided over until 2019, that is, during the eurozone crisis that began in 2008 with the collapse of the Icelandic banking system, and then in 2009 spread to Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain, insultingly marked with the abbreviation PIIGS.
Full text read in the new issue of the weekly VREME
Read daily news, analysis, commentary and interviews at www.vreme.com
