Prodi Gives ECB President ‘A’ for Effort

December 2, 2014. CEIBS Shanghai Campus – Former President of the European Commission Romano Prodi has given European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi a passing grade, saying he’s doing his best under the circumstances. Draghi’s been juggling everything from the EU’s quantitative easing (QE) debate to falling oil prices. Speaking at an executive forum for CEIBS students and alumni this evening Prodi, who also has years of experience in the oil industry, says he expects that prices will remain low for a while. He had been surprised, he said, by OPEC’s recent decision not to reign in supply which led to crude oil’s biggest price drop in three years. The ECB’s Governing Council is now grappling with how this will impact inflation targets.

In his wide ranging address Prodi, who’s also the former Prime Minister of Italy and Sino-Europe Dialogue Chair at CEIBS, touched on issues such as Germany’s strong influence within the euro zone, the use of drones in the war against terrorism, the Sino-American and China-EU relationships, and what China can gain from both sides going ahead. He’s convinced that Europe is a much more accessible market for Chinese companies going global, and he urged the Chinese to emulate the European approach to providing citizens with safety nets such as universal health care and pensions. He admitted, however, that this may be a hard sell. “When you’re not sexy from the political point of view, you’re not sexy from the institutional point of view,” he said. “But European systems, for example healthcare, are much more appropriate for the future of China than the US system. China’s future depends not only on entrepreneurship and free trade but on which systems you will build in the future.”

Prodi was speaking during a lecture and panel discussion on “Understanding a World of Changes”.