When she took office, the Frenchwoman set herself the goal of clear communication.
(Photo: laif (2), Marc-Steffen Unger, REUTERS, Bloomberg)
Frankfurt Last Thursday was the opposite of clear communication in monetary policy: at 1.45 p.m. the European Central Bank (ECB) published its statement on the council meeting. The text was almost identical to that of the previous month. It seemed as if the central bank had not even noticed that inflation rose to a record 5.1 percent in January – instead of falling significantly as expected.
Even the option to cut interest rates even further remained in the statement. As if it were still about fighting prices that were too low.
The initial reactions were correspondingly harsh: Deka chief economist Ulrich Kater even accused the ECB of simply “ignoring” inflation and continuing “at full throttle on a slippery road”.
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