Europe’s leaders worship Mario Draghi. They should listen to him instead
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi secured a place in history by his demonstration, on 26 July 2012, of the power of words in a financial crisis. Not long in office, he had already shown willingness to act firmly, averting a liquidity crunch by providing three-year lending facilities for European banks. That day, he told a conference in London: ‘Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough.’ While the rest of the speech was an opaque metaphor about the euro as a bumblebee — ‘a mystery of nature because it shouldn’t fly but instead it
