Speaking in an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” newspaper, Bundesbank Vice-President Claudia Buch stressed that stricter regulation of the banking sector does not pose a risk to the funding of the green transition. Equity capital enables banks to carry on supplying credit, even when times get tough, she remarked, noting that European banks are robust and satisfy the ratios they are expected to. At the same time, the financial system is more vulnerable than it was just a few years ago owing to the severe shocks to the economy, Buch said.

Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel, speaking at an event at Ruhr University Bochum, has called for further interest rate steps. Looking to future developments, he said: “In my view, it is by no means certain that interest rates will reach their peak as early as this summer.” He believes that the German economy is well placed to rise to the challenges ahead, even if it did contract over the past two quarters: “With regard to the remainder of the year, our economists are cautiously optimistic. Things should start to pick up again soon, then.”

German economic output is expected to rise again slightly in the second quarter of 2023, the Bundesbank writes in the May edition of its Monthly Report. Inflation, which is now broad-based and rather persistent, is increasingly leaving its mark on wage rises. There is much to suggest that firms will pass on part of the increased wage costs through their prices as the year progresses.

“Central banks and supervisors also need to consider nature-related risks and biodiversity loss,” urged Sabine Mauderer, member of the Bundesbank’s Executive Board, in her opening speech at this year’s Bundesbank Spring Conference. “Because there will be no stable climate without a healthy natural world – and vice versa.” President Joachim Nagel used his welcome address at the “Central Banks and Climate Change” research conference to stress that “by pursuing price stability, the Eurosystem is supporting the green transition”.