Anna Breman: Daring to think differently - on the Riksbank's monetary policy communication

Speech by Ms Anna Breman, First Deputy Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at the Centre for Central Banking Studies, Bank of England,London, 25 June 2025.

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

Thank you for inviting me to this conference focusing on transforming monetary policy, and asking how we should think about uncertainty and risks. It is indeed an important topic in today's turbulent times.

Central banks often say that economic developments are uncertain or highly uncertain. This has definitely applied during the last five years. During that short time, we have experienced a pandemic, Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine and the sharpest global inflation spike in decades. Added to this we now have escalating geopolitical conflicts and increased trade barriers. The new challenge is that the economic policy uncertainty in the world has increased (Figure 1) and that central banks need to take this into consideration.

Whether global disruptions will continue to be as common in the future, we cannot know. But there are nevertheless good reasons to be prepared for the fact that monetary policy may need to be conducted and communicated in a politically and economically more uncertain world in the future.