Mario Draghi faces the German hawks head on, defending the ECB's monetary policy which has always been the subject of harsh criticism from Berlin.
After the words spoken this morning at the central bank's first annual conference on economic research, the number one of the Eurotower returned to the Bundestag, where he immediately raised one of the thorniest topics for the German parliamentarians: low interest rates «Rates – said Draghi – must be low today to allow for a reversal to lower rates high in the future".
The president of the ECB also underlined that "to obtain all the benefits of monetary policy measures, other policies should contribute more decisively, both at national and European level".
In other words: structural reforms and budget laws are needed to boost growth and investment. Germany itself could spend more. Because if on the one hand low interest rates contribute to the erosion of savings, on the other they reduce the amount of mortgage payments, representing a benefit for families in the Eurozone, including German families. The measures of the ECB, starting with quantitative easing, have "saved about 2015 billion euros in 28 alone in the form of lower interest rates" to the German Finance Ministry, recalled the Italian economist.
Regardless of this, the Eurotower number one rejects the criticisms of the sender: "our measures are working and are helping to keep the recovery on track, which thus creates jobs and ensures a recovery that ultimately also helps the returns of savers and pensioners in Germany as in the whole euro area. We take these aspects seriously."
"If we want savers to benefit from higher interest rates in the future, - concluded Draghi - we will have to create investment opportunities to put those savings to productive use".
