In the accounts of July 21-22 meeting, ECB said a “large majority” of the council members supported the forward guidance proposal, which was “widely seen as providing a fine balance between greater emphasis on outcome-based elements in the forward guidance and a more flexible, forward-looking perspective.”
However, “a few members upheld their reservations, as the amended formulation did not sufficiently address their concerns.”. This related in particular to the “implied likelihood and persistence of overshooting, and being seen as promising to keep interest rates at their present or lower levels for a very long time period without an explicit escape clause.”
ECB also said, the new forward guidance “underscored the Governing Council’s commitment to achieving its new inflation target”. It indicated that ECB would “wait until it was confident about the path of inflation before raising the key policy rates.” Nevertheless, the guidance is “not a rule” but “an indication to financial markets and the broader public” for aligning their inflation expectations.
