Mario Dragi was still in his first year of office when in July 2012 he uttered the words that will include him in history textbooks. It was the height of the crisis in the Eurozone. Greece was practically broke, and bigger countries like Italy, Spain and France had trouble coming up with fresh money.
Financial markets were betting that the monetary union would collapse.
Dragi slapped speculators with one sentence. The European Central Bank (ECB), he said, is ready to do "whatever is necessary to save the euro". After a short pause, he added: "Trust me, that will be enough."
A sentence weighing trillions of euros
The message was clear - you can't beat the European Central Bank.
The risky move had an effect: speculation declined, politics gained room for maneuver.
"With that speech in London, Draghi probably saved the euro," says Thomas Mayer, former chief economist of Deutsche Bank, and today head of a think tank that deals with economics.
"Whatever it takes" – Dragi meant it when he said that. Soon the ECB flooded the market with cheap money. He lowered the benchmark interest rate to zero, introduced negative interest rates for commercial banks to prevent them from bunkering money in their accounts and encouraged them to lend more to the economy.
Every month, the ECB bought bonds of governments and companies for 80 billion euros each. So far, 2,6 billion euros have been spent for this!
That campaign earned the Italian expert the nickname Super Mario, after the lovable brat from the video game.
But Dragi also had to endure criticism, especially from Germany. Because Germany is a country of savers, and savers do not benefit at all when interest rates are low or non-existent.
"Thus, the probability of people falling into poverty in old age increases," says Thomas Mayer.
"Zero or negative interest rates simultaneously mean wealth redistribution".
In pursuit of profits, a lot of money from bank accounts goes into real estate and stocks. The stock market exploded just like real estate prices and rents.
"The profiteers are definitely the real estate owners and shareholders – in Germany, this is an absolute minority," Mayer told DW.
German experts and politicians accused Dragija of exceeding the mandate of the ECB and of "illegally" financing countries that fell into financial difficulties.
What awaits Christine Lagarde?
However, during the crisis, Draghi had to make a decision - there is no fiscal policy that suits everyone. He chose to make things easier for the over-indebted countries of the Eurozone with more favorable loans and the purchase of government bonds. To, as he said, give them time to implement reforms, reduce costs, stimulate growth, free the banking sector from bad loans.
One of the tragedies for Mario Draghi is that they did not want to hear those appeals in his home country of Italy. The second tragedy is that in the end he fell short of the most important goal - to increase inflation to two percent.
These weeks, when the economic momentum in Europe is weakening again, the European Central Bank is, so to speak, bare-handed - there is no way to stimulate the economy anymore. Because the interest rates are already at zero. Only the controversial mechanism of buying government bonds can be strengthened a little more.
In short, Draghi's merit is that he saved the monetary union with his determined performance. But part of the legacy is that it leaves Christine Lagarde's successor with an empty arsenal to fight the next crisis.
Sooner or later, the new head of the ECB will have to face a problem that even Draghi could not cope with: the monetary union can only function if all eurozone countries renounce their sovereignty. That is, if they all follow a similar fiscal and economic policy or agree to guarantee each other.
Both are unlikely.
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