FRANKFURT, Germany — The future of Europe will soon be in the hands of a dapper, 63-year-old Italian economist with a name reminiscent of a James Bond villain and with long experience in the delicate art of economic diplomacy.
Mario Draghi is set to take office as president of the European Central Bank in November, making him, along with the Federal Reserve’s Ben S. Bernanke, one of the world’s two most powerful central bankers. He is inheriting an extraordinarily difficult situation, taking control in the midst of a debt crisis, with little time to learn on the job.
The European media refers to Draghi as “Super Mario” for his energetic style. The question is whether he can live up to the nickname.
The core of his challenge is this basic impasse: Greece, one of the 17 countries that use the euro currency, is essentially insolvent, paying its debts only with the help of bailouts, and Portugal and Ireland are in dire straits as well. The ECB has declared it unfathomable for one of its member nations to default on its debts, a position Draghi has echoed. Yet the willingness of the governments of stronger European nations to continue with bailouts may be reaching a breaking point.
Draghi is no stranger to the issues in play. He has been leading the Italian Central Bank through the crisis, and thus has had a seat at the table on major ECB decisions. He also is chairman of the Financial Stability Board, a group of the world’s top central bankers and other financial officials that aims to coordinate global efforts to rein in risks to stability. Perhaps an even more relevant qualification: He was head of the Italian Treasury in the 1990s, when the country faced the risk of defaulting in a crisis of its own, and knows the pressures that the leaders of troubled European nations are coming under.
Read more at The Washington Post.