The Year Ahead/Global Economics
If Italy Behaves Itself, Mario Draghi’s Parting Gift for Europe May Be a Rate Hike
The European Central Bank president hasn’t hiked once in seven years.
ECB headquarters in Frankfurt.
Photographer: Klaus Ohlenschläger/Picture-Alliance/DPA/AP PhotoThis article is for subscribers only.
One day next fall, Mario Draghi may do something he hasn’t done in seven years as European Central Bank president: raise interest rates.
The 71-year-old Italian is in his final stretch as the Continent’s crisis-fighter-in-chief after a tenure defined by multiple volleys of monetary easing. With the ECB poised to halt a buying spree that hoovered up €2.6 trillion ($2.9 trillion) of the region’s bonds, Draghi and the other members of the bank’s Governing Council are hinting that their first move to undo more than half a decade of stimulus might come just before his exit at the end of October.