Klaas Knot: In resolute pursuit of price stability

Speech by Mr Klaas Knot, President of the Netherlands Bank, at the 32nd Frankfurt European Banking Congress, Frankfurt am Main, 18 November 2022.

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

In the run-up to any big football tournament, newspapers, podcasts, and TV presenters overload you with facts and figures, performance levels and prognoses. But amidst all those stats and stories, they usually forget one golden rule: in the end, Germany always wins.

At the ECB, we play a different ballgame. But just like in football, to beat the current economic challenges, to normalise inflation, and to safeguard the sustainable welfare of people in Europe, we team up. We defend and strike together. And we won't forget the golden rule of our game: in the end, we only win if all of us win.

For a long time, inflation was hardly on anyone's mind. But today, inflation has returned with a vengeance and has become a key issue for everyone.

Three years ago, in 2019, headline inflation in the euro area stood at a seemingly unshakable 1%. A year later, it even dipped below zero. A mere year ago, as the economy rebounded from the pandemic, headline inflation approached an unprecedented 5%. And yesterday, for the first time in its history, Eurostat reported double-digit headline inflation of 10.6%, and even more worrisome from our perspective, core inflation (excluding energy, food, alcohol & tobacco) reached an all-time high at 5.0%.