President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi was speaking today at the scheduled press conference, when he was interrupted mid-speech by a number of protesters.
The female protester, who has yet to be identified, wore a t-shirt which read “The ECB is a dick-tatorship” as she stood on the desk, shouted, and threw paper and various detritus onto Mr. Draghi whilst he addressed the delegates.
International dissent has steadily mounted over ECB and European Union central government policy over the last few years, with the economies of member states floundering, and measures which run from successive bailouts to nationalization of banks, to a 60 billion euro a month quantitative easing policy which is scheduled to run until late 2016.
Member states with good economic principles and vast financial services sectors, such as Britain, are unable to vote on EU policy, yet the European Parliament in Brussels can implement laws which stand in Britain, costing the nation’s taxpayers a vast amount of money supporting member states which are in serious financial difficulty and have low production output and high unemployment.
The Euro has been depreciating over the last month, with lows experienced in March which put it almost on a par with the US dollar, its lowest value since inception, and with measures being taken by Switzerland to unpeg its sovereign currency, the Franc, from the Euro, resulting in unprecedented market volatility in January, and Denmark having briefly considered capital control measures in order to maintain its Euro peg.
As unrest mounted in Greece four years ago when the national economy hit rock bottom, no questions were asked of the European Central Bank as to why loans of , almost a third of the European Central Bank’s 340 billion Euro capitalization, were made to the nation, which were secured on failing banks, exposing the central bank to a potentially unsecured liability.
For this particular delegate, it certainly appears as though enough is indeed enough.
Video courtesy of CNBC