ECB’s Draghi suggests minutes are a “logical next step”
The European Central Bank's President is pushing efforts at greater clarity.
Mario Draghi has said that "the publication of a richer account of our monetary policy deliberations", otherwise known as minutes, now "represents a logcal next step".
The central banking chief thinks that publication would "provide a more detailed explanation of the reasoning" behind ECB decisions, and "gives a sense of the discussion".
Speaking on the topic of "Central banking in the next two decades", Draghi doesn't push for as much transparency as we'd like, saying that such minutes would not attribute positions to individual council members.
Draghi's position – that he is "convinced that it [minutes] would be useful" – remains a leap forward versus the status quo. The ECB's current policy is the most opaque of the big four central banks. It is required to release just a summary of meetings 30 years after they take place. The first are not due until 2028.
In the US the Federal Reserve publishes minutes with a five year delay, and the Bank of Japan after 10. Here in the UK, the Bank of England elects to record meetings of its interest-rate setting committee, and then destroys them after summary minutes are created. Steps towards greater transparency, and the preservation of historical records, are ones to be welcomed.