The poll is painful for the ECB board. Especially for Christine Lagarde, the president of the central bank. It’s the first confidence poll under her reign. ‘When you ask why trust is so low, you find that even the staff of the ECB are ordinary people. They are very concerned about the development of purchasing power.’
The staff then specifically mentions that “the ECB is failing to reduce inflation and keep it low”. “Many ECB employees often hear directors in speeches calling for lower pay rises, but staff are not engaged in this way. They don’t want the bill for high inflation to fall on employees,” says Mujagic.
Condemns Lagarde
‘I can imagine that ECB employees also want to see their income grow more, that’s human nature. But the fact that they don’t trust their employer to reduce inflation in the long run speaks volumes.’ Mujagic believes the low confidence is partly due to Lagarde. ‘I can’t escape the impression that it’s not a good idea to portray a politician as a prominent woman instead of an economist. It is also not irrelevant: she too was prosecuted and convicted in her own country as her.”