ECB preview: Life after Draghi

Next week’s ECB meeting will b e Mr Draghi’s last policy meeting a t the helm of the ECB. No policy announcements will be made and it will be a rather boring meeting in that respect. More interesting will be to get a sense from Mr Draghi how divided the Governing Council remains at this stage and to what extent this will limit , in his view, the ECB’s room for maneuver going forward. T here is little doubt that Mr Draghi will defend the decisions taken and he is likely to stress that the ECB remains in principle ready to ease policy further should this be needed. But this will be obviously not be up to him anymore. It is clearly too early to judge whether the Draghi doctrine – when inflation undershoots, the ECB eases policy – will remain in place under Mrs . Lagarde or whether the ECB will gradually transition to a “muddling through approach”. Nonetheless, next Thursday’s press conference may give us a first taste which way th e discussion is heading.