, Columnist
Lagarde Doesn't Act on Her Dire Warnings
The ECB’s economic outlook for Europe is bleak. Its policy could have shown more urgency.
When to be bold.
Sour: Bloomberg/Bloomberg
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Christine Lagarde became president of the European Central Bank last year under the auspices that she would reunite a bitterly divided governing council. This week’s monetary policy announcement shows the problems with taking a more consensual approach.
The ECB’s latest package — which includes an expansion and an extension of its asset purchases, as well as new rounds of cheap loans for banks — comes across as an uneasy compromise between different factions. The problem is, it falls short of matching the central bank’s dire economic outlook for the euro zone.