Economics
Christine Lagarde’s $810 Billion Coronavirus U-Turn Came in Just Four Weeks
On Feb. 27, she said there was no obvious need for a monetary response to the pandemic. Then everything changed.
Christine Lagarde at the ECB’s news conference following the policy decision in Frankfurt on March 12, 2020.
Photographer: Alex Kraus/BloombergChristine Lagarde was barely four months into the European Central Bank presidency when she sat down at her dining room table, two iPads and two phones at hand, and prepared to tell her colleagues it was time to unleash massive stimulus or face an existential crisis.
It was 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18. Lagarde was in her Frankfurt apartment, and on the line were the rest of the 25-member Governing Council. The goal was to agree on measures to stem the financial and economic meltdown caused by the coronavirus.