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According to many analysts, the future of the eurozone was secured after a now famous speech by ECB chief Mario Draghi, in July 2012, in which he promised to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro.  But according to leaked transcripts - obtained by the FT - of interviews for a book by former US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner, the ECB chief’s comments were anything but planned.

According to Geithner, the remarks were “off-the-cuff” and “totally impromptu”. “I went to see Draghi and (...) at that point, he had no plan. He had made this sort of naked statement of this stuff. But they stumbled into it”, a leaked transcript of the interview says.  Improvisation as the origin to one of the most important comments on the eurozone fits with other descriptions of the ECB president.  Simeon Djankov, Bulgarian finance minister from 2009 to 2013, describes the different personalities of Draghi and his predecessor, Jean-Claude Trichet.

In his book “Inside the Euro Crisis”, he writes about the different personalities of successive ECB presidents Jean-Claude Trichet and Draghi.  During meetings with the EU finance ministers, Trichet “would read prepared statements, and after that he would fade into the role of passive observer,” Djankov wrote in his book “Inside the euro crisis”.  Draghi, on the other hand, had a “more instinctive approach” and “scribbled his talking points on bits of paper a few minutes before the meeting began, tossed out comments throughout the discussions, and stayed until the end”...

Eurozone inflation rose to 0.4pc in the year to October, up from 0.3pc in the preceding month. At that level, price growth remained stuck well below the ECB's medium-term target of close to 2pc.

“It is essential to bring back inflation to target and without delay”, Mario Draghi, president of the ECB, said in a speech in Frankfurt on Friday.

The central bank official made reference to the quantitative easing schemes launched by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan, noting that they had reduced the strength of the country's respective currencies.  Traders sold the euro on Mr Draghi's dovish comments, as the currency fell by more than three-quarters of a percentage point to less than 1.25 against the dollar. Mr Draghi stressed that while there had been improvements in the financial sphere, these had “not transferred fully into the economic sphere”, where the situation “remains difficult”.   The currency bloc has an eye-wateringly high unemployment rate of 11.5pc, while economic growth has ground to a near-halt .   The eurozone managed to dodge a third technical recession since the financial crisis, but it now appears that the euro area economy is unlikely to pick up speed by the end of the year.  The ECB has made a number of interest rate cuts across the year in an attempt to boost the economy, consequently bringing one of its three main rates - the deposit facility rate - into negative territory.   The rate is currently maintained at -0.2pc, meaning that banks that park their money with the ECB overnight have to pay the central bank for the privilege.