The European Central Bank’s outgoing president Mario Draghi has defended its unconventional monetary policies against recent criticisms by serving and former policy-makers.

Critics of some or all of the ECB’s policies have become increasingly vocal as Draghi’s eight-year term sets to end. Many of the critics have been from Germany, or from neighbouring northern European countries, which traditionally share hawkish views of monetary policy.

Draghi mounted a typically courteous and nuanced