In contrast to the nine previous hikes, the European Central Bank’s (ECB) decision to raise key interest rates by 0.25 percentage points on 14 September 2023 was no longer unanimous in the ECB’s Governing Council but, according to ECB President Christine Lagarde, only approved by a „solid“ majority. The public response is also no longer as unanimous as before. Some experts, such as the President of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) Marcel Fratzscher, emphasise the risk that the ECB is taking with this step regarding the economic development in the Eurozone. Markus Demary, an expert at the Institute of the German Economy (IW), which is close to employers, criticises the decision more or less directly: „The ECB has chosen to take inflationary pressure out of the economy and is accepting a recession for the sake of price level stability“.
The ECB gambles away its credibility weiterlesen