It's been more than thirty years since Mario Draghi he is a public figure with increasingly important and delicate institutional roles in Italy and abroad. In the 90s he was Director General of the Treasury and, in this capacity, he contributed, among other things, to the birth of the Euro and to the massive privatization plan which dismantled a good chunk of public industry. Then, after a period in the private banking field, he was appointed Governor of the Bank of Italy having to deal with both the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and the explosion of the Italian crisis in 2011 which erupted just as he was about to take up the post of president of the ECB who left in November of last year.
Now the question everyone is asking is: what will Draghi do in the near future? Many rightly consider him a reserve of the Republic, the man who could be called upon to rescue us from an even more dramatic crisis than the one we have been experiencing in recent months. He, faithful to his style, doesn't feed gossip, doesn't participate in debates, doesn't go on TV, takes care not to accredit the idea that politics could be his next target.
Although it has been clearly visible for a long time, Italians don't know it well. But beyond what he will still be able to do for our country, it is worth getting to know him better, if only because such a character can be an example for many young people.
Marco Cecchini's book, "The Draghi enigma", Fazi Editore, manages in a clear and concise way to unravel the enigma. It outlines the character of the man who is not at all cold and detached, but is very scrupulous, loves to ponder the pros and cons of each decision for a long time, and then, when he arrives at the conclusion, he manages to argue with such punctuality as to often convince his interlocutors . Once he has taken a road, he travels it with energy, without too much hesitation, not even with respect to the sometimes malicious criticisms that often fall on the heads of those who occupy positions of great responsibility.
Cecchini's book brings out the character through the story of most important and controversial decisions Draghi has made over the past thirty years. The result is a useful contribution to making the so-called “finance secrets“. These are certainly technical problems, but then the solutions are influenced by human problems, the characters of the interlocutors, political positioning and cultural orientations. Just like in any other workplace, and when important decisions have to be made.
Draghi will go down in history as the savior of the Euro for his "whatever it takes" namely the ECB's commitment to do everything necessary to defend the currency, pronounced on 26 July 2012 in the midst of a storm that was jeopardizing the survival of the single currency born just over ten years earlier. An unexpected move, which changed the expectations of the markets. Draghi had taken a calculated risk or as an American economist said "he had leaned out the window, but not enough to fall out".
The same meticulous technical and political preparation was made by Draghi for the launch of Quantitative Easing in 2014-2015 to overcome the doctrinaire and technical resistance of the Bundesbank and of the German Finance Minister Schauble. It is a story that many will remember well, but which takes on the character of a fictional story for those who have not had the opportunity to follow those events live.
Draghi is an innovator, as evidenced by the changes made in all the institutions where he has exercised leadership roles, attentive to development and social equity as well as the stability of the currency. Giuliano Amato, in the preface to the book, clearly identifies which one future president of the republic. Even if our country, as we hope, manages to overcome the economic crisis caused by the health emergency brilliantly, it would be very useful if a man well known internationally, a fervent pro-European, a man of deep convictions but also a pragmatic who knows how to find the way to handle even the most difficult situations.
