European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the region needs more-centralized powers to push governments to overhaul their economies.
“There is a case for some form of common governance over structural reforms,” Draghi said in a speech in London yesterday. “This is because the outcome of structural reforms, a continuously high level of productivity and competitiveness, is not merely in a country’s own interest. It is in the interest of the union as a whole.”
Draghi has repeatedly said the ECB’s ultra-loose monetary policy isn’t sufficient to sustain the euro area’s fragile recovery if governments backslide. European Union finance ministers meeting in Brussels this week signaled a willingness to give politicians extra leeway so long as they take measures to fix their economies. They then clashed as Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi pushed back against austerity measures.
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