[iii] Jean-Claude Trichet, 2014: "Central Banking in the Crisis: Conceptual Convergence and Open Questions on Unconventional Monetary Policy" Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan; National Association for Business Economics, Vol. 49(2), pp. 74-84, April. www.perjacobsson.org/lectures/101213.pdf [iv] See Kydland, F. and E. Prescott (1977) “Rules rather than discretion: The inconsistency of optimal plans”, Journal of Political Economy, 85(3), pp. 473-92 and Alesina, A. and L. Summers (1993) “Central bank independence and macroeconomic performance: Some comparative evidence”, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 25(2), pp. 151-162. [v] See Nicholas Bloom (2009), “The Impact of Uncertainty Shock”, Econometrica, Volume77, Issue3, Pages 623-685 [vi] The final version is scheduled for publication on 22 February 2019. [vii] Press conference given by Mario Draghi, 24 January 2019. 5/6  BIS central bankers' speeches  [viii] “ECB Monetary Policy and the Resilience of the Eurozone”, Columbia University, New York, 19 April 2017, speech by François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Banque de France. [ix] Address given by Mário Soares on the European Community of the future (Lisbon, 19 October 1990). Download the PDF version of this document123456789 1 See Article 127 of The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. 2  Hartmann, Philipp, Smets, Frank, “The first twenty years of the European Central Bank: monetary policy”, ECB Working Paper Series, No 2219, December 2018. 3 Jean-Claude Trichet, 2014: “Central Banking in the Crisis: Conceptual Convergence and Open Questions on  Unconventional Monetary Policy” Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan; National Association for Business Economics, Vol. 49(2), pp. 74–84, April.

Though we are recording some early signals of a price acceleration – such as the services component of the HICP estimated at 1.6%6 in January –, we observe a weakening in the pass-through from wages to prices: here also, is this weakening temporary – due to an increased time lag – or attributable to more structural factors? We have to consider this issue carefully, which is also currently at stake in the United States. In this context, I still believe that the gradual normalisation of our monetary policy is desirable. Our chained guidance of last December has been less noticed than the successful end to our net asset purchases. But it is efficient in combining clarity about the sequencing – full reinvestments will last for an extended period after a first rate-hike – and flexibility about the timing of each step. Consequently, financial markets tend to adapt their calendar expectations – and hence financial conditions – to the perceived outlook: our chained guidance already provides some stabilisation function, without prejudice to our future decisions. Beside flexibility in the calendar, let me stress another capacity of our monetary policy: pragmatism in its intensity, thanks to the powerful “trio” of instruments at our disposal: the reinvestments of assets, interest rates and liquidity. Concerning this third instrument (provision of liquidity), everybody is aware of the forthcoming expiry of the TLTRO-2 programme, starting in June 2020. The Governing Council will decide about this in due time, with two prerequisites.