Flying in the face of ECB leadership
A stunned Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, holds up his hands in defense as a protester storms his briefing Wednesday.
A female protester threw papers and confetti at a stunned European Central Bank president in Frankfurt on Wednesday as he held a press conference about the bank’s latest policy meeting.
The woman jumped onto a table where Mario Draghi was seated and shouted, “End ECB dictatorship,” throwing papers in his face. She wore a T-shirt with the same slogan, but it misspelled “dictatorship” as an obscene phrase. The ECB president held up his hands in defense as she was grabbed and dragged away by a group of men. Draghi then carried on with his remarks.
The ECB announced it was keeping rates the same.
It said it is investigating the incident but “initial findings suggest that the activist registered as a journalist for a news organization she does not represent,” the group said in a statement. “Like all visitors to the ECB, she went through an identity check, metal detector and X-ray of her bag, before entering the building.”
Activist Josephine Witt, 21, told USA TODAY in an email that she was the perpetrator of the shocking interruption. “They call Mario Draghi a frog, but it was me who jumped,” she said.
On Twitter, Witt said the verbal assault was not a protest by FEMEN, a feminist group that has staged events around Europe in the past few years, including in Davos, Switzerland, during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum earlier this year.
“The #confetti-attack was not a #femen protest, I’m sorry ladies. I consider myself a freelance-activist. #exfemen #ecb Free Riot!” Witt said in a tweet.
“I would say, the #ecb’s security service is just as good as putins... :) finally outside police station!” she tweeted later.
In December, Witt was fined $1,500 for a half-naked protest at a 2013 Christmas Day Mass in Cologne, Germany, NBC News reported. At the time, Witt was a member of FEMEN.
Activists periodically protest what they see as the ECB’s enforced austerity measures on such fiscally troubled European countries as Greece and Spain.