ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel said in a speech, “asset purchases were an “indispensable monetary policy instrument during times of market stress and economic downturns”. It also helped to “bolster confidence and shore up the economy and the inflation outlook” after calming the markets.

“As economic conditions begin to normalise and the inflation outlook improves,” she said, “there is a gradual shift in the way asset purchases benefit the economy as the portfolio rebalancing channel makes way for the signalling channel.”

“Asset purchases can increasingly serve as a powerful commitment device, reinforcing forward guidance and reducing uncertainty around the future course of monetary policy.”

She concluded, “given the remaining uncertainty regarding the pandemic and the economic and inflation outlook, our asset purchases – both under the PEPP and the APP – will remain crucial in the time to come, paving the way out of the pandemic and towards reaching our inflation target.”

Full speech here.

ECB Governing Council member Gabriel Makhlouf said, “I believe that, at the moment, fears of excessive euro area inflation are overstated and that the current price pressures reflect transitory factors that will fade out over time.”

But he also admitted, “there is considerable uncertainty about the persistence of price pressures and we need to interpret this (inflation) data and the outputs of our models with caution.”

ECB Governing Council member Martins Kazaks said, “if Covid does not surprise on the negative side, there is some upside for the inflation outlook over the medium term.” But he added, “I am talking about decimals here.”

“There is perhaps some upside for those numbers to be revised up in the following forecasting rounds,” Kazaks said. “I agree with the current outlook, but I would say that the balance of risks for inflation are somewhat on the upside.”

“We hear some anecdotal evidence that there could be some wage pressures down the road, but we have not seen that yet in the data,” he said. “There is no reason to expect that inflation would be permanently very hot. If at some point inflation will be significantly higher than our strategy and monetary-policy mandate, then of course we will know how to react.”

ECB Governing Council member Olli Rehn said while growth in Eurozone is robust, supported is still needed. The outlook is clouded by bottlenecks as well as coronavirus variants.

The central bank is expected to debate in December on timing and the way to wind down the PEPP purchases. Rehn said he’s confident to find a ” viable and meaningful way of ensuring favorable financing conditions when we start our very gradual transition from the crisis measures to the next normal.”

He also urged governments to prepare for the eventual rise in borrowing cost even though a rate hike is “not yet within sight”. “It will nevertheless one day take place,” Rehn said. “This should be taken into account in budgetary planning in all the euro area countries.”