Lagarde’s ECB a Nest of Cronyism, Politico Says, Citing New IPSO Staff Survey

29 April 2025

By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank under President Christine Lagarde is a den of rampant favoritism, according to reporting by news organisation Politico, which on Tuesday cited a new poll recently conducted among ECB employees.

The survey conducted by the International and European Public Services Organization (IPSO) from February 26 to March 14 revealed absent or low trust in the Executive Board among a whopping 52% of ECB staff, with a vanishingly low 8% reporting high trust.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Lagarde herself fared yet worse than the Executive Board as a whole. An astonishing 57% of the nearly 1200 respondents declared themselves as having no or low trust in her.

According to Politico, the chronic dissatisfaction at the institution is due to ‘perceived favoritism’, with a staggering three quarters plus of respondents complaining that ‘it’s knowing the right people that gets you ahead at the ECB’ and nearly as high a share criticising that connections rather than competence lead to promotions.