Mario Draghi, hosting the G-20, has put Italy in enviable shape

Draghi’s Italy is a country that has become charmed — at least for now — by his political competence and clout.

October 28, 2021

Mario Draghi’s life, as recently as nine months ago, was far more relaxing than it is now. He spent time at his Umbrian country house. He played golf with his son. His legacy, built as a central banker who had helped to rescue the euro zone from crisis, was already secured.

But with Italy in the depths of the pandemic, and searching for a prime minister, Draghi received an unsolicited invitation from Italy’s president.

“And he couldn’t say no,” said Giovanni Orsina, director of the school of government at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome.

That explains how Draghi, 74 — pulled in from semiretirement to become prime minister — now finds himself again on the world stage, hosting a Group of 20 summit where the issues in play are at least as complicated as anything from his past. The two-day summit, dealing chiefly with climate and the pandemic, will test how meaningfully the world’s industrial powers can ease gaping vaccine inequities and speed up reductions of their greenhouse gas emissions. Especially on climate, where countries’ commitments are many times below what science suggests is necessary, there is a considerable risk of failure.