Christine Lagarde officially takes up duty as President of the European Central Bank

Christine Lagarde took up her duties as President of the European Central Bank (ECB) on November 1, succeeding Mario Draghi, the monetary institution announced.

Lagarde, the first woman to become president of the body since its launch in 1998, has experienced a career progression marked by the crises she lived through as head of the French ministry of economic affairs (2007-2011), and then as head of the International Monetary Fund from 2011 until 2019, the Brussels Times writes.

She was elected to head the ECB by the European Council on October 18 2019 for a mandate of eight years.

She assumes the role at a time when the ECB is starting a new and controversial so-called market debt buyback program, approved in September by a governing council that is very divided on the issue, the daily adds.

Each month, the ECB will buy back 20 billion euro of public and private bonds to support a lacklustre European economy and balance the inflation back to a 2 percentage point.

The new ECB boss on Wednesday delivered a strong message on RTL to Germany and other countries running budget surpluses that she considers “have not really made the necessary efforts” to consolidate a period of low growth, whereas the central banks “have done their job.”

European Central Bank Germany - Evropska Centralna Banka

European Central Bank

Christine Lagarde

President of ECB

Mario Draghi