By John Arrowsmith
The European Central Bank is not the immutable autocratic monolith it’s sometimes represented as. It has an executive board of six full-time members serving eight-year non-renewable terms who, together with the governors of the 12 national central banks of the euro area, constitute the policy-making governing council, each of whose members has an equal voice. The ECB’s deliberations thus reflect a wide variety of personalities and perspectives. And personalities come and go.
Only last month, a new face appeared on the governing council. Following the resignation last December of the governor of Italy’s central bank, Antonio Fazio, amid a swelling tide of accusations, his successor, Mario Draghi, also takes his place, ex-officio, on the ECB’s governing council.
Whereas Fazio was a career central banker, Draghi has had a more varied, though equally relevant, career outside central...
