Joachim Nagel: The European Central Bank's mandate - maintaining price stability in the euro area

Speech by Dr Joachim Nagel, President of the Deutsche Bundesbank, at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 17 October 2022.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

1 Introduction

Ladies and gentlemen,

I thank you very much for the invitation to the Center for European Studies.

It's a pleasure for me to be here at Harvard University, to meet you in person and to have the opportunity to share with you my perspective on European monetary policy.

Two years ago, my predecessor Jens Weidmann gave his lecture at Harvard University online. He talked about economic policy challenges following the pandemic.

Who would have thought then that high inflation would be one of the greatest economic policy challenges, if not the greatest, two years later? On the other hand, who would have thought then that a devastating war would break out in Europe one-and-a-half years later?

During the recent meetings of the IMF and the World Bank Group, the G7 and the G20 in Washington D.C., the fight against inflation was a major topic. According to the IMF's latest World Economic Outlook which was released last week, global inflation will rise from 4.7% in 2021 to 8.8% in 2022.