The Power And The Impotence Of The ECB

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I’ve attend­ed two con­fer­ences in two days where both the pow­er and the impo­tence of the Euro­pean Cen­tral Bank (EBC) have been on vivid dis­play.

Its polit­i­cal pow­er is con­sid­er­able, both in form and in sub­stance. At both sem­i­nars, the ECB speak­er—ECB Board mem­ber Peter Praet at the first, and ECB Pres­i­dent Mario Draghi at the second—spoke first, and then left. In form, the ECB has no need to defend its poli­cies because it is unim­peach­able in its exe­cu­tion of them. In sub­stance, it does not even con­sid­er­ing engag­ing with its subjects—I use the word deliberately—in open and robust dis­cus­sion.

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