Draghi: at the end of the ceremony, Mattarella, Merkel and Macron

a farewell regarding the dose of continuity to be maintained in the future at least as much as the homage to the past. In seven days Mario Draghi enters last week as president of the European Central Bank and for that day, next Monday, the farewell ceremony is scheduled in Frankfurt. It will be political in its own way, judging by the participants: among others the head of state Sergio Mattarella, German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president Emmanuel Macron.

Something similar happened eight years ago, at the transition between Draghi and his predecessor Jean-Claude Trichet. Even then there were Merkel and the French leader of the moment, Nicolas Sarkozy. It was one of the dramatic passages of the euro crisis and the presence of the leaders was the implicit confirmation of their commitment and – for Merkel – a guarantee offered to the German public regarding an Italian president of the ECB. The language of symbols will also be seen in seven days after the arrival of Mattarella, Macron and Merkel in Frankfurt. The change of the guard from Draghi to the French Christine Lagarde falls while the signs of tension multiply around the European economy and the building of the ECB. in September the last decision desired by Draghi to sustain inflation and ever-weaker growth in the euro area: new purchases of securities to the bitter end, enormous liquidity at very favorable conditions for the banks, even more negative returns for deposited money and not invested. That line prevailed by majority over a very tough opposition, among others, from the Bundesbank, the Bank of Holland and – less sharp – from the French governor Franois Villeroy de Galhau.

Since then, a group of retired central bank notables, almost all of them from Northern Europe, have published an open letter against Draghi, so an unprecedented leak has revealed that some ECB technical committees had advised against certain measures that were then resolved in September. You don't simply want to settle the scores from the defeated Draghi years. the attempt to influence or intimidate Lagarde when taking over the Italian in November. And not just a clash between doctrines: Eiopa, the European authority for corporate pension funds and insurance companies, has made it clear that some companies in the sector are in serious difficulty, given the zero or negative returns on the securities offered on the market. Hence the German and Dutch pressure on the ECB to raise rates, even if the euro area in 2020 is likely to stop or go into recession. For Italy, an essential game: any ECB move in discontinuity with Draghi can raise public debt even more in proportion to the gross product, because it would push inflation down. The decline in debt promised by the government for the coming year depends entirely on a price increase of 1.9%. And already today that inflation travels at just 0.3% that estimate appears to be very precarious.