A survey conducted among ECB employees is causing considerable embarrassment to the Eurotower leaders. The reason? From the consultation comes a resounding and surprising rejection of the current president Christine Lagarde, whose performance was deemed "poor" or "very poor" by over 50% of ECB staff members, a merciless assessment compared to the excellent ratings obtained previously by Mario Draghi and Jean Claude Trichet.
The survey that is embarrassing the ECB
The survey was conducted by Ipso, the union of employees of the European Central Bank which also includes the banking supervision SSM. The investigation was carried out halfway through President Christine Lagarde's eight-year mandate to seek judgment on her actions and the results, so to speak, did not enthuse the Eurotower leaders. They were the ones who gave their opinion 1.100 employees (62% men, 36% women) out of a total of 5.100 including trainees.
The results of the survey on Lagarde
Well, according to the survey, 53% of employees think that Lagarde is not the right person to lead the ECB, with 50,6% of those interviewed in fact judging its performance as "poor" or "very poor".
Not only that, 59% of those questioned say they have more than that lost confidence in the Executive Committee due above all to recent decisions such as "desk sharing" to save money, cuts to early retirement benefits, but also the latest salary agreement (not yet approved by the Council) which establishes an increase of 4,7 percent.
It should also be noted that over half of those interviewed think that the ECB is currently unable to guarantee the return to price stability it has promised.
However, there are some issues on which Lagarde has obtained the support of employees, such asinclusion of environmental protection in the ECB's mandate.
The opinion on Draghi
When the same survey was done on Mario Draghi (at the end of the mandate however, not in the middle as for Lagarde) the results were very different. In fact, 55% gave a very positive evaluation of his work, judging him “very good” if not “exceptional”.
"Mario Draghi was in the service of the ECB, while the ECB seems to be at the service of Christine Lagarde,” wrote an ECB staff member, as reported by Politico. Several interviewees said they had the impression that the former French finance minister wanted to use her current role as a springboard to return to politics.
Also of interest is the judgment on monetary policy carried out by the Central Bank: today only 38% of employees approve it compared to Draghi's 64%.
ECB: poll flawed
An ECB spokesperson stated that “this survey is flawed. It includes matters for which the Executive Committee or the Board of Directors is responsible and not the president alone, and which do not fall within Ipso's remit. It also appears that the answers may have been filled out several times by the same person."
The spokesperson also highlighted that Eurotower frequently conducts staff surveys, collecting responses from 60% of employees. Recently, over 80% of those interviewed said they were proud to work at the ECB, while during the pandemic the performance of Lagarde and Consiglio achieved high approval.
