Lagarde’s Task Is to Lead a Cultural Revolution
The new head of Europe’s central bank needs to persuade her colleagues, and Europe’s governments, to start pulling together.
It falls to her.
Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
As Christine Lagarde takes over as president of the European Central Bank this week, the job looks less daunting than what greeted her predecessor, Mario Draghi, in 2011. Don’t be misled. Thanks to his efforts, the euro system is no longer in imminent danger of breaking apart. But this certainly doesn’t mean all is well. Sooner rather than later, in fact, the problems that Draghi suppressed are likely to resurface.
What’s more, when they do, the ECB’s tools will be much less powerful than before. As the former head of the International Monetary Fund, Lagarde is well-versed in the issues. Her main task is to help Europe’s political leaders to see the danger — and to persuade them that, next time around, they’ll need to shoulder much more of the economic-policy burden.