ECB Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny complained that “in past years we perhaps followed markets’ expectations too intensively and avoided disappointing them.” He emphasized “central banks should be the decisive institution and must therefore sometimes disappoint markets.”
On inflation targeting, Nowotny favors aiming for 2% plus or minus one percentage point. And, it means that inflation of 1.6% is also within the target area and therefore requires no monetary policy measures”. However, he said “Draghi by contrast interprets ‘symmetry’ in such a way that lower interest rates are in place for a longer period: ‘lower for longer’ is the slogan here. I actually consider that to be a problematic signal.”
