FRANKFURT: Mario Draghi ended his eight-year term as head of the European Central Bank by defending his most recent stimulus package and reminding that the eurozone is now in better shape than during the days when the Greek crisis threatened to break it apart.

Draghi resisted extensive reminiscence about his term at his last news conference. He downplayed the recent and unusually public criticism from a minority of the 25-member governing council members after the bank decided September 12 to re-start bond purchases with newly printed money.

The stimulus is meant to revitalise the economy but critics worry it should be saved for more serious downturns and can distort financial markets, increasing risks down the line.

Draghi said that criticism of the stimulus was “part and parcel of the ongoing debate.” “We have discussions, everybody has discussions,” he told reporters after presiding over the last policy meeting at the ECB before former International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde takes over November 1.

He was asked to look back at the Greek crisis that was raging when he took over as president in 2011, when many investors were speculating about the end of the euro due to a government debt crisis.

Draghi praised Greece and its people for the painful progress in righting the country’s finances and economy since it almost crashed out of the eurozone in 2010-2012 and then again in 2015. Greece was recently able to sell government bonds at negative interest rates, in part due to the ECB’s stimulus efforts that drove down borrowing costs.

“The main efforts have been done by the governments and the Greek citizens who had to pay a high price,” he said. “It is a good time for Greece, and compared to three or four years ago, it’s a good time for Europe, for the eurozone countries.”

It was during the depths of the crisis in 2012 when Draghi uttered the words that are credited by many with turning around the economic fortunes of the euro. He told a conference on July 26, 2012 that the ECB will do “whatever it takes” to save the currency. The vow, backed up weeks later by a promise to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds if needed, calmed volatility in bond markets.

Draghi says the bank’s stimulus measures also helped create some 11 million new jobs since the peak of eurozone unemployment in 2013.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2019