benoit cœure : people are not only savers opinion piece from mr benoit cœure, member of the executive board of the european central bank, for the frankfurter allgemeine sonntagszeitung, 1 may 2016. * * * is the ecb stubborn because we are adhering to our monetary policy despite strong criticism? no. we are complying with a precise task that was conferred on us. the eu treaties gave the ecb a narrow price stability mandate. in 2003 the ecb ’ s governing council clarified that euro area inflation should be below, but close to, 2 % over the medium term. this interpretation has not changed since. to pursue this deliberately narrow objective, the ecb has been given a great amount of independence, building on the successful experience of the deutsche bundesbank. this focus is in line with the economic concept of “ monetary dominance ”. to ensure this, central banks must be assigned a well - defined objective. they must also be granted sufficient discretion when determining and carrying out their measures. monetary dominance implies that in carrying out its mandate a central bank may not make itself dependent on the specific decisions of other institutions. a fundamental assumption underlying european monetary union is therefore that different institutions must act independently within their mandates. several times in the past, the ecb faced the risk of inflation remaining high for too long in an environment of expansionary economic policies. did we wait for other authorities to take measures before raising interest rates? no, and rightly so. similar considerations apply to the current environment. at present, inflation in the euro area is around 0 % and is expected to remain low for a considerable period of time. in this environment, we had to act decisively and provide significant monetary stimulus through a set of measures which were carefully prepared and discussed by the governing council. our latest package, with its increased size of purchase volumes and its emphasis on credit to households and companies, is proving effective, as recently confirmed by our bank lending survey and, more generally, by the recovery of economic activity throughout the euro area. we are confident that our measures will bring inflation back on a sustainable path consistent with our objective of price stability. however, there are compelling reasons to suggest that inflation in the euro area will go up only gradually. they include a legacy of private and public debt that was too high, which led to a fall in economic activity and an increase in unemployment. more recently, global developments which are having a negative impact on inflation

secured by real estate in high climate risk areas were more expensive than loans with the same characteristics but in safer regions. however, the effect we find is economically small, so it seems that the climate - related risk is still underpriced by the average bank. let me conclude. good, reliable data are a cornerstone of sound risk management. this also holds true for managing the risks stemming from climate change. thanks to the ongoing dialogue between supervisors and banks, some major stumbling blocks have already been overcome. the good practices observed for collecting real data on energy performance 2 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches show that, while the task is challenging, it is far from impossible. sharing your practices with peers will help more banks to improve the availability of energy performance data. so we are all looking forward to hearing about your experiences and learning from what worked well. the ongoing climate and nature crises will inevitably render our economy more susceptible to shocks. from a risk - based perspective, let me reassure you that ecb banking supervision will continue to play our part in spurring on banks to prepare for these risks. to succeed in our common goal of making banks resilient to climate and nature - related risks, it is vital that we keep up this dialogue with you – the industry – and encourage the exchange of good practices in the years to come. i would like to thank you for coming to frankfurt today to share your experiences. 1 see european commission ( 2024 ), energy performance of buildings directive. 3 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches