Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank, says the world is changing, but she doesn’t agree that it is a rupture.
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The current world order is changing but its transformation is not a rupture, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on Friday, pushing back on Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s argument that “we are in the midst of a rupture”.
“I’m not exactly on the same page as Mark,” Lagarde told the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“I think that we policymakers are at a point where we have to look at Plan B, but even with those plans B … I’m not sure that we should be talking about rupture,” she said. “I think we should be talking about alternatives.”
Referring to the same panel discussion, Bloomberg reported International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva as saying: “There is no question that the world is changing — it has been changing for quite some time.
“We are in a more shock-prone world. We get surprised by geopolitics, by technology, by climate, and we are not so accustomed to being in that kind of fast-changing environment.”
Carney talked about “the end of a nice story and the beginning of a brutal reality”. Without referring to the US once, he said “great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons”, and “tariffs as leverage”.
READ | IN FULL | ‘Rupture in the world order’: Carney’s era-defining World Economic Forum speech
Carney’s speech was hailed by local analysts, who say SA should stand with other “middle countries”. However, there is scepticism around the government’s capacity to negotiate the new world order.
READ | As Trump shatters world order, SA is urged to embrace Carney’s vision of middle powers
Former Finance Minister Trevor Manuel told News24 in Davos that, contrary to Carney, US President Donald Trump acted like a “bull in a china shop”, but he was also highly critical of the SA government’s “own goals” in international relations.
READ | Trevor Manuel compares Mantashe to Trump, blasts ‘broken’ ANC govt
With additional reporting by News24.
