ECB to publish details of policy meetings next year

The European Central Bank said yesterday it would start publishing accounts of its monetary policy meetings next year — a move that will raise transparency but still leave it behind other big central banks.

The accounts of Governing Council discussions will be published from January 22.

The accounts — the ECB does not term them ‘minutes’ — will be released four weeks after each meeting.

The US Federal Reserve publishes a full set of minutes for each policy meeting after three weeks.

From August 2015, the Bank of England will publish minutes of its debates alongside its decisions, rather than wait nearly two weeks as it does now.

Michael McMahon, a professor of economics at Warwick University, said the development still left the ECB “behind the curve” compared to other major central banks.

“It’s a step in the right direction in terms of transparency but they’re not racing to the frontier at any great pace,” he said.

The development came amid heightened market expectations that the ECB will announce a programme of quantitative easing (QE) — money printing to buy sovereign bonds — early next year.

The immediate upshot of the announcement is that the written account of the January 22 meeting will be published well in advance of the ECB’s following policy meeting, on March 5. Investors expect an announcement on QE at either of the first two monetary policy meetings in 2015.

The ECB’s policymaking Governing Council comprises the six-members of the Frankfurt-based executive board and the 18 euro- zone national central bank chiefs, whose number grows to 19 next year when Lithuania joins the eurozone.

* Reuters