Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, looks on as she attends the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium on September 25, 2023.
Yves Herman | Reuters
President Christine Lagarde said on Thursday she was “proud and honored” to lead the European Central Bank after her leadership was sharply criticized in a staff survey conducted by the union.
She was responding to a question about the results published by ECB union IPSO earlier this week, in which more than half of respondents rated their performance so far as “very poor” or “poor”.
The survey’s qualitative responses suggested some staff believed she had created a negative atmosphere at the central bank and that she was “spending too much time on issues unrelated to monetary policy,” IPSO said.
Former politician and lawyer Lagarde was unimpressed, saying the ECB had conducted its own polls in a “way we can trust.” It was found that the majority of respondents stated that they enjoyed working at the facility, that they would recommend working there to a friend, and that their work has a mission attached to it.
The surveys are completed by about 60% of workers and also address wages, respect in the workplace and job satisfaction, she said.
“We value and act on these technically sound answers, and we will continue to do so. What keeps me going are these answers,” Lagarde told reporters in a briefing after the ECB’s monetary policy meeting in January.
“And I am extremely proud of the staff at the ECB and I feel very proud and honored to lead the institution because we are driven by a mission. “To ensure price stability, but to serve Europeans, and we will continue to do that.” She continued.
Around 1,100 people took part in the IPSO survey. The ECB employs more than 5,000 people and trainees.
The union said responses “generally” described Lagarde as an “autocratic leader” who did not necessarily act in accordance with the values she proclaimed.
It was said that she was rated significantly worse than her predecessors Jean-Claude Trichet and Mario Draghi.
An ECB spokesman called the survey “flawed” and said it covered issues that were not specific to the presidency and were outside IPSO’s remit. They also said it could have been filled out multiple times by the same person.
—CNBC’s SiIvia Amaro contributed to this article.
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2024-01-25 16:29:34
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