No doubt, there IS a change in style. A fresh, or shall we say, different wind. There has to be, when a powerful and influential institution "supertanker" like the European Central Bank has a change at the helm after eight years.

And this change was more than tangible when Jean-Claude Trichet left and Mario Draghi took over last November. Yes, there were a couple of rate cuts and an unprecedented bumper-liquidity boost via an entirely new three-year money market operation. So the "new captain" started with policy fireworks.

And promptly, there were those out there in ECB-watcher-land who swiftly concluded that the "Italian" was more pragmatic, more of a "dove" than the Frenchman with his almost Teutonic stubbornness in defending what at times sounded eerily like the old Bundesbank.

I for one was not so hasty. I tell you why: Draghi is "my" third ECB president (after Wim Duisenberg and Jean-Claude Trichet); and - for a warm up - I had previously lived and worked through three Bundesbankers. And, you know what? The hasty conclusions were always the same.

A Social Democrat running the "Buba" - like Carl-Otto Pöhl - was meant to work better for an SPD Chancellor and promote lower interest rates and ample liquidity injections. A Conservative - such as Tietmeyer - was sure to help a CDU chancellor.

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