The ECB Is Turning 20, But It Can’t Shake Teenage Angst
- Euro area’s recurrent financial stress reflects systemic flaws
- Italy is the latest threat to the currency bloc’s survival
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The European Central Bank’s 20th anniversary arrives on Friday as another financial scare -- this time in Mario Draghi’s Italian homeland -- shows that the euro area still hasn’t grown up.
It’s a chance for the ECB president to remind governments that their political project, to create a monetary union out of economically and culturally disparate sovereign nations, is far from finished. As anti-establishment populists gain ground across the bloc, the risk is that the single currency’s weaknesses could allow it to be ripped apart.