Christine Lagarde: Interview with Yomiuri Shimbun

ملخص مفصل

The European Central Bank (ECB) is the central bank of the European Union countries which have adopted the euro. Our main task is to maintain price stability in the euro area and so preserve the purchasing power of the single currency.

On the glass ceiling and women in power – could you share your own experiences for Japanese women, not least because you know their situation as well?

I discussed this topic a lot with Prime Minister Abe and his wife. He was determined to make a change for Japan at the time, and he had this programme called “One Million Women”. He got one million additional women into the workplace by implementing quite a few policies that were really helpful, like giving more freedom to the municipalities to open childcare centres.

So thanks to Prime Minister Abe things changed a lot. And it helped women access positions of professional responsibility.

At the ECB you became the first female leader. Did you have any difficulties or challenges in terms of being the first woman to lead the ECB?

But the situation has not changed from seven years ago. I mean, seven years ago, there was...

Those decisions are made by the governments of the Member States and, typically, governments go for a man. First of all, because I think that while the pipeline of talented women is building up, this is only a recent development. And second, because people tend to choose other people who look like them. So you have many men in government, and they tend to appoint other men.

I want to ask about monetary policy. Sorry to change to a serious question. How do you see the inflation outlook now?

Headline inflation in October was at 4%, which was higher than we had expected a few months ago but in line with market expectations. It looks very high. But it’s important to look under the hood.

It’s largely attributable to energy, because energy inflation increased to 20.8%, up from 18.9% in September, driven by the conflict in the Middle East and less global refinery capacity. So energy is weighing heavily on our inflation numbers. Food inflation has also increased.

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