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FRANKFURT — Tensions over Europe’s stance on the Israeli-Hamas conflict, which have already rattled the European Commission, have spread to its central bank.
The extra twist in Frankfurt is that some staff not only feel the ECB is taking the wrong position, but that it shouldn’t take a position at all.
On October 9, with the shock of the terrorist attacks on Israel two days earlier still raw, the ECB put out a message on social media saying: “We stand with the people of Israel,” showing a picture of the Israeli flag flanked by European flags in the central bank’s lobby.
It wasn’t clear whether the post was issued in the name of the organization as a whole, of the governing council, or just the six-strong executive board.
Asked to clarify, an ECB spokesperson declined to answer directly, but gave a response markedly more nuanced than the original tweet, saying: “The ECB is shocked and saddened by the unfolding events in the Middle East. Our hearts go out to the innocent victims and civilians affected by the conflicts.”
Either way, the original tweet triggered a heated internal row among staff.
“It felt like the conflict was imported to the ECB,” said one member of staff, granted anonymity to be able to speak freely.
Discussion on the IPSO trade union’s internal anonymous staff chat site became so heated that the union’s leadership took the extremely rare decision of deleting some commentary.
“The IPSO Board has decided to close several threads which contained comments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict triggered by recent events,” IPSO said in an internal message seen by POLITICO. “Some comments were reported to us as offensive to the communities concerned and below the standard applicable to the forum.”
IPSO Vice President Carlos Bowles said the union will “not comment on this conflict further than expressing our compassion for the victims.”
In an echo of the reaction against European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, some of the messages posted on the IPSO board attacked the ECB for showing solidarity only with Israel, neglecting the past trauma of Israeli occupation of Gaza. These in turn provoked a fierce reaction from colleagues supporting Israel.
A third group stressed it is not the job of an independent central bank with a mandate to ensure price stability to take any position in a complex international conflict.
“The ECB shouldn’t support anyone,” said one still-active post seen by POLITICO. “It’s a central bank defined by its mandate set out in the treaties and not an international political actor, unlike other EU institutions.”
Another said the ECB had exceeded its mandate “with a political statement divided (sic), instead of uniting Europe, by omitting to support all civilian victims of aggressions, independently from their nationality.”
One post suggested that raising the Israeli flag after the atrocities was not a political statement, but rather a sign of solidarity with innocent victims.
But even if well-meant, such displays of solidarity can be a slippery slope: one staff member wrote that “I am proud that the ECB is standing with Israel” before adding: “The ECB should also stand with Armenia.”
That was a reference to Azerbaijan’s crushing of the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in September, another long dispute that exposed deep divisions in European foreign policy.
The flag was removed from the lobby after three days.
The staff member told POLITICO that the ECB never stood a chance of reacting in a way that would not draw criticism.
“I’m sure if we had not shown solidarity, people would have said we have forgotten our special history with the Jewish people,” he said.
This special history is all-too present in that ECB lobby, which stands on the site of Frankfurt’s former wholesale market. More than 10,000 members of the city’s Jewish population were deported from there by the Nazis to concentration and extermination camps between 1941 and 1945.
“After all, the euro is not only a currency but a project for peace,” the person added.
