Policy brief

European Central Bank accountability: how the monetary dialogue could be improved

This Policy Brief was prepared for the European Parliament's Monetary Dialogue with the President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi. The autho

Publishing date
03 March 2014

According to the European Union Treaties, the European Central Bank (ECB) is accountable to the European Parliament. In practice, this accountability takes mainly the form of a quarterly Monetary Dialogue between the president of the ECB and the European Parliament Economic and Monetary Affairs committee.

We assess the impact of the Monetary Dialogue. We describe the ECB’s accountability practices, compare them to those of other major central banks and provide an assessment of the dialogue in the last five years. The Monetary Dialogue could be improved and we make recommendations on this.

We also consider what role the Monetary Dialogue could play in the current context of the ECB’s evolving role. We discuss in particular forward guidance and quantitative easing. We review the main features and the way in which those policies have been implemented by other central banks. We then suggest the appropriate role for the Monetary Dialogue in relation to each of those policies. We conclude with some observations on the function of the Monetary Dialogue after the establishment of a banking union in Europe

About the authors

  • Mark Hallerberg

    Mark Hallerberg was a Non-Resident Fellow at Bruegel from September 2013 to 2022. He is a Professor of Public Management and Political Economy at the Hertie School of Governance and is Director of Hertie's Fiscal Governance Centre.

    He is the author of one book, co-author of a second, and co-editor of a third. He has published over twenty-five articles and book chapters on fiscal governance, tax competition and exchange rate choice.

    He has previously held professorships at Emory University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has done consulting work for the Dutch and German Ministries of Finance, Ernst and Young Poland, the European Central Bank, the German Development Corporation (GIZ), the Inter-American Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.

  • Olga Tschekassin

    Olga Tschekassin, German citizen, was a Research Assistant at Bruegel from October 2013 until November 2014. She holds a Master degree in International Trade, Finance and Development from Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) and graduated with a thesis on index fund investment and its impact on commodity markets. She obtained her B.Sc. in Economics from the Free University Berlin with a thesis on measuring inflation expectations in the area of Time Series Econometrics. During her studies she spent a year as international student at Université Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne in France.

    Before joining Bruegel, Olga gained experience in research as intern at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Economics Department, working on macroeconomic risk and structural determinants of financial account positions. She worked as intern in Commerzbank Ag Paris in the Financial Strategy Unit conducting financial and market related analysis and prior to this, she held a position as teaching assistant at Free University Berlin at the chair of Knowledge Management.

    Her research interests include Macroeconomics, Finance and International Economics. Olga is fluent in German, English, French and Russian and has a good knowledge of Spanish.

  • Grégory Claeys

    Grégory Claeys, a French and Spanish citizen, joined Bruegel as a research fellow in February 2014, before being appointed senior fellow in April 2020.

    Grégory Claeys is currently on leave for public service, serving as Director of the Economics Department of France Stratégie, the think tank and policy planning institution of the French government, since November 2023.

    Grégory’s research interests include international macroeconomics and finance, central banking and European governance. From 2006 to 2009 Grégory worked as a macroeconomist in the Economic Research Department of the French bank Crédit Agricole. Prior to joining Bruegel he also conducted research in several capacities, including as a visiting researcher in the Financial Research Department of the Central Bank of Chile in Santiago, and in the Economic Department of the French Embassy in Chicago. Grégory is also an Associate Professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris where he is teaching macroeconomics in the Master of Finance. He previously taught undergraduate macroeconomics at Sciences Po in Paris.

    He holds a PhD in Economics from the European University Institute (Florence), an MSc in economics from Paris X University and an MSc in management from HEC (Paris).

    Grégory is fluent in English, French and Spanish.

     

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