Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann takes a critical view of the ECB Governing Council's latest monetary policy easing.

The finance ministers and central bank governors of the seven leading industrial economies (G7) have met in Dresden to discuss ways to achieve a more dynamic world economy and a stable financial system. Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann stressed the major importance of innovation, investment and structural reforms in this context.

In a speech at the Frankfurt Euro Finance Summit, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann underscored the fact that the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) is tied to the pandemic, and that it must come to an end once the emergency situation has been overcome.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann says that climate-related financial disclosures should be mandatory. “The Eurosystem has a legitimate interest in making climate-related risks more transparent,” he said in a speech at the Green Swan 2021 Global Virtual Conference.

The Bundesbank has significantly raised its forecast for German economic growth for this year and the next. Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann expects the trajectory of growth to be sustained in equal measure by domestic and foreign demand. However, he sees risks of a setback to economic recovery in the euro area.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann believes the new strategy will help monetary policy maintain price stability for the people of the euro area. “A medium-term inflation rate of 2% is a clear and easily understandable objective. We are not striving for either lower or higher rates. That was important to me,” was how Mr Weidmann assessed the outcome of the strategy review.

The European Central Bank and other major central banks have agreed on a coordinated action to safeguard the provision of credit institutions with cheap US dollar loans. This will serve as a liquidity backstop amidst the coronavirus pandemic and strengthen the supply of credit to households and enterprises. Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann welcomed the coordinated action.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann believes that central banks should not employ monetary policy to pursue distributive aims. “Not only do we lack the democratic legitimacy to do so, the vagueness of the effects also renders monetary policy ill-suited for targeted interventions to tackle distributional issues,” he explained at an international research conference organised by the Bundesbank.

Given the massive increase in government debt in the euro area, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann has warned of the risk of fiscal dominance. He sees a risk that political pressure could arise and grow to keep interest rates low for the long term. In a streamed speech, he therefore said that “We need to make it very clear that we are not going to place monetary policy at the service of fiscal policy. If we create a different impression, we are putting both our independence and our credibility at risk.”