ECB to publish accounts of policy meetings from January

The European Central Bank said on Thursday it would start publishing accounts of its monetary policy meetings next year, a move that will raise the ECB's transparency but still leave it behind other big central banks.

The ECB will begin publishing the accounts of Governing Council discussions starting with the meeting on January 22nd. The accounts - the ECB does not term them ‘minutes’ - will be released four weeks after each meeting.

The US Federal Reserve publishes a full set of minutes for each policy meeting after three weeks. From August 2015, the Bank of England will publish minutes of its debates alongside its decisions, rather than wait nearly two weeks as it does now.

Michael McMahon, a professor of economics at Warwick University, said of the development still left the ECB “behind the curve” compared to other major central banks.

“It’s a step in the right direction in terms of transparency but they’re not racing to the frontier at any great pace,” he said of the ECB’s announcement.

QE early next year

The development came amid heightened market expectations that the ECB will announce a programme of quantitative easing (QE) - money printing to buy sovereign bonds - early next year.

The immediate upshot of Thursday’s announcement is that the written account of the January 22nd meeting will be published well in advance of the ECB’s following policy meeting, on March 5th.

Investors expect an announcement on QE at either of the first two monetary policy meetings in 2015.

The ECB’s policymaking Governing Council comprises the six-members of the Frankfurt-based Executive Board and the 18 euro zone national central bank chiefs, whose number grows to 19 next year when Lithuania joins the euro zone.

Divisions

Like other central banks, the ECB’s policymaking body is marked by divisions between its members but these are particularly acute over the issue of QE, with a German-led contingent on the Council opposed to the idea.

Such discord often reverberates through the media and financial markets after policy meetings.

“The accounts will offer a fair and balanced reflection of policy deliberations,” the ECB said in a statement.

The written accounts will contain an overview of financial market, economic and monetary developments, followed by a summary of the discussion, in unattributed form, it added.

“In many ways it is welcome given that we have nothing at the moment really from the ECB and they are the outlier of the major central banks,” said McMahon. “It seems like they are taking baby steps towards more transparency.”

Reuters