Accountability in Action: The European Parliament’s Assessment of the ECB 2024 Annual Report

1 Introduction

Although the European Central Bank (ECB) has assumed a broader role than the one envisaged at the time of its creation, its accountability framework has hardly changed (Amtenbrink and Markakis 2022). The primary political institution designated to hold the ECB to account is the European Parliament (EP).^[1] In this context, each year the EP adopts a report on the ECB’s performance, which is prepared by the EP’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON). This is not to be confused with the ECB’s own annual report on the activities of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and on the monetary policy of both the previous and the current year to the EP, the Council, the European Council, and the European Commission.

The EP report on the ECB’s performance in 2024 was adopted by the ECON on 16 January 2025. However, only 26 Members of the European Parliament voted in favour, while 16 voted against and 11 abstained. On 11 February 2025, the EP adopted the report^[2] by a small majority of 61 %, with 378 votes in favour, 233 against and 26 abstentions – the lowest support level since 2005 (Koroes 2025).

This contribution reflects on the main issues raised in the report: the independence of the ECB, price stability and the fight against inflation, the ECB’s secondary objectives, the ECB’s unconventional monetary policy measures, and the digital euro. In doing so, this contribution aims to put the, at times, rather abstract statements in the EP report into context and to point out inconsistencies and open questions.

2 Central Bank Independence

Economists generally favour the delegation of monetary policy to an independent central bank with a clear mandate to pursue price stability as a commitment device. When an independent and inflation-averse central bank is in charge of monetary policy, the inflation bias due to the so-called time inconsistency problem is much smaller than when the government is in charge of monetary policy (Rogoff 1985). The empirical prediction of this theory, namely that countries with an independent and conservative central bank will have lower inflation than countries where monetary policy is controlled by the government, has been confirmed by most research (see de Haan and Eijffinger (2019) for a review of the literature).

However, there are several reasons why central bank independence (CBI) should not be taken for granted. First, many observers seem to have excessive and unrealistic expectations about what central banks can achieve. As Borio (2020: 104) puts it: “Central banks are not just expected to fine-tune inflation, but also to take care of output and employment, to avoid all recessions and, for many, to be the prime engine of growth.” But this is a tall order that the central bank alone cannot deliver. Central bank mandates have also been interpreted more broadly to include financial stability, and there is a debate on the role that central banks must or could play in climate change mitigation and the transition to a net zero economy, as well in tackling economic inequality. As a result, there is less consensus on the importance of central bank independence, as arguably these objectives should not be left to unelected technocrats (Goodhart and Lastra 2022) but in any event call for reinforced accountability arrangements (Amtenbrink 2025).

Moreover, the independence of the ECB has been challenged in view of (the consequences of) its monetary policy in the past two decades. Central banks in advanced economies, including the ECB, adopted unconventional monetary policies first to raise inflation and, thereafter, to combat the devasting economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. By keeping interest rates very low and buying financial assets, central bank policies are often thought to increase inequality.^[3] The gains from such monetary policies, in the form of higher corporate and stock market returns, are highly concentrated at the top of the income distribution. More recently, the ECB (and other central banks as well) have been criticized for letting inflation rise well above the self-proclaimed 2 % target, which has undermined public trust in the central bank (van der Cruijsen et al. 2025).

The EP report endorses the independence of the ECB when it observes, for example, that “the statutory independence of the ECB, as laid down in the Treaties, is a prerequisite for it to fulfil its mandate, which is to maintain price stability in the euro area and thereby contribute to economic growth, competitiveness and job creation”.^[4] It is also concluded that the “ECB’s political independence … should remain untouched.” Interestingly, the resolution also “calls on the ECB to adhere to its mandate when interpreting or acting upon its secondary objectives; stresses that overstepping this mandate touches on the independence of the ECB.” Elsewhere in the report it is stated that “political independence requires the ECB to refrain from taking political actions.” This is a stern warning that the ECB should not take on the role of a policy maker (see Section 5 for a further discussion). The report does not link these statements to any specific issues, so it is not entirely clear what the EP had in mind. One plausible explanation is that the ECB’s climate policy forms the backdrop of these considerations (Koroes 2025). Indeed, in the verbatim report of proceedings on the EP debate, several MEPs refer to this.^[5]

Despite the support for the independence of the ECB, the EP also invites “the ESCB to continue and strengthen its dialogues with national parliaments, which it believes would strengthen the legitimacy and policies of the ESCB.”^[6] It is hard to argue against arrangements by which the ECB occasionally, upon invitation of national parliaments enters into a dialogue and creates a forum for discussions on the monetary policy strategy and also the fulfilment of the secondary objective of the ECB, thereby increasing the knowledge and expertise of national parliamentarians (Fraccaroli et al. 2018). Yet, when it comes to the more formal aspect of the legitimation of ECB’s monetary policy, the EP is the most appropriate institution. This is because in pursuing the objective laid down in primary EU law, the ECB conducts monetary policy for all euro area Member States and thus not for individual Member States. Put differently, the primary objective of the ECB is price stability in the euro area as a whole,^[7] not a low and stable inflation in individual Member States, even though several MEPs referred in their contribution to the debate on the EP report to inflation in their home countries. This does not rule out any arrangements under national law according to which national central bank (NCB) officials appear regularly or upon request before their respective national parliaments. The extent to which such encounters can function as an accountability mechanism situated at the level of national parliaments is very limited, however, because NCB governors can hardly be held to account for the collective decisions taken at the supranational level by the ECB’s Governing Council. Moreover, Article 130 TFEU on the independence of the ECB and NCBs sets strict limits on the degree to which national politics can engage not only with the ECB but also NCBs on the conduct of monetary policy.

In as much as the above statement by the EP might also relate to the ECB’s task as European banking supervisor, the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) Regulation^[8] explicitly provides for a role of national parliaments in the accountability of the ECB for this task, which includes the possibility of national parliaments to invite the Chair or a member of the Supervisory Board to participate in an exchange of views in relation to the supervision of credit institutions in that particular Member State together with a representative of the national competent authority (NCA).^[9] The main reason for this inclusion of national parliaments in the accountability arrangements is the close cooperation of the ECB’s Supervisory Board and the NCAs in the day-to-day supervision of financial institutions and the potential impact of the supervisory measures on the Member States (Amtenbrink 2022a). Be that as it may, a comparison of the applicable rules reveals that also for banking supervisory tasks the accountability arrangements of the ECB vis-à-vis the EP are comparably stronger than those vis-à-vis national parliaments (Amtenbrink 2022b).^[10]

3 The ECB’s Primary Objective: Price Stability and Fight against Inflation

The ECB’s primary objective is to maintain price stability in the euro area, which it has quantified following its strategy review in July 2021 as 2 % inflation over the medium term.^[11]

The EP is critical about the high inflation rate in the euro area. Although it “[w]elcomes the decrease in core inflation from its peak of 7.6 % in March 2023 to 2.7 % in December 2024”, it “[r]egrets that core inflation still remains high in the euro area … with only three euro area Member States reporting core inflation rates below 2 % in December 2024.” In addition, the report expresses concern that “high core inflation could translate into higher headline inflation numbers.” In this context, it is noted that high core inflation “generates economic uncertainty, discourages savings and increases citizens’ living costs, particularly affecting those on fixed and limited incomes.” The EP also adopts a rather critical tone when it observes that “it has taken the ECB more than three years to achieve a level of inflation that is commensurate with its target level of 2 %”, acknowledging “that monetary policy has a more direct effect on inflation levels when it stems primarily from demand factors rather than supply factors”, while “supply shocks, primarily originating from external sources, were among the key drivers of the inflation surge.” However, inflation had already passed the 2 % mark in July 2021 and rose sharply to 5 % by the end of the year, so well before Russia invaded Ukraine. In addition, the ECB continued to expand its balance sheet, long after the economy had recovered.

The EP report finds that the ECB made an incorrect assessment in expecting that inflation would only be transitory. However, it does not address the important question of why the ECB responded with such a considerable delay to the inflation hike. In fact, only in July 2022, when inflation in the euro area was already 8 %, ECB key policy rates were increased by 50 basis points. Orphanides (2023) explains this late response with the ECB being trapped by its own forward guidance. First, the ECB’s calendar-based forward guidance on asset purchase programmes, with a pre-announced schedule of net purchases, implied that asset purchases would continue, and maturing bonds would be reinvested even when inflation was above target. Asset purchases under the PEPP continued until March 2022. In fact, it was not until July 2023 that the ECB ceased reinvesting assets purchased under the APP. Second, it has been observed that “a commitment to raising policy rates only after net asset purchases ended – a ‘sequencing’ restriction that was an important component of the ECB’s forward guidance” (Orphanides 2023, p. 10). What is more, the ECB’s forward guidance on normalisation relied on inflation forecasts. For example: “The Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present levels until it sees inflation reaching 2 % well ahead of the end of its projection horizon and durably for the rest of the projection horizon, and it judges that realised progress in underlying inflation is sufficiently advanced to be consistent with inflation stabilising at 2 % over the medium term.” (ECB 2022). Inflation forecasts have formed a crucial part of the forward guidance trap: As the inflation forecasts turned out to be wrong, lift-off was postponed (de Haan 2025). Initially, inflation was expected to rise only temporarily and soon to return to levels below 2 %. This explains why the ECB considered it necessary to continue the APP and not to raise policy rates. Although inflation forecasts were subsequently revised upwards, they remained too optimistic for a long time (see de Haan 2025 for details).

According to the EP report, the high inflation “triggered a ‘cost of living crisis’ for EU citizens”, whereby it is considered that “high inflation levels disproportionally affect lower-income households that spend a higher proportion of their budget on necessities”. It is for this reason that in the EP report it is observed that “bringing headline inflation back down to their target levels is therefore also important to maintaining social cohesion.” Indeed, households at the lower end of the income spectrum are least capable to hedge against inflation: their incomes are usually fixed in nominal terms, and their savings are held in cash or bank accounts. Indexation mechanisms, where present, offer only partial relief, as the frequency of wage adjustments often fails to keep pace, especially when inflation runs very high. There is substantive evidence that inflation significantly increases income inequality (see Colciago et al. 2019 for a discussion). However, the recent evidence of El Herradi et al. (2023), who examine the distributional implications of inflation on top income shares in 12 advanced economies using data over the period 1920–2016, suggests that inflation affects the rich as well as it reduces the share of national income held by the top 1 %.

The EP report is somewhat ambiguous about current interest rates. It stresses that “keeping interest rates too high could harm economic growth”. At the same time, it “calls on the ECB not to lower interest rates too quickly, given the risk that inflation levels could start increasing again while inflation is already above 2 %.”

4 The ECB’s Asset Purchase Programmes

The EP Report is rather critical on the ECB’s crisis-induced asset purchase programmes. On the one hand, the report “[s]upports the ECB’s decision to scale back its asset purchase programmes, so as to balance market liquidity conditions and inflation levels, in view of the excess liquidity in the market and decreased levels of inflation” and “welcomes the fact that the asset portfolio under the ECB’s purchasing programmes has been on a downward trend since 2023.” On the other hand, the report criticizes the increase in interest payments on bank reserves. The report points out that in 2023, the Eurosystem paid more than EUR 120 billion interest to credit institutions, which amounts “to at least 0.8 % of euro area GDP”, and calls this a “significant subsidy”, which should be mitigated. However, the use of the term subsidy in this context is misleading, as it wrongly suggests some form of active financial support by the ECB for commercial banks. When a central bank purchases debt instruments on the secondary market, this is reflected in an increase of reserves of commercial banks with the central bank. The renumeration on these reserves increases when the central bank raises its policy rates.

Still, the question is legitimate whether such a situation is desirable and, if not, what can be done to reduce the transfer of central bank funds to commercial banks. De Grauwe and Ji (2023, 2024) have argued in favor of raising the minimum reserve ratio and not to pay interest on these minimum reserves. The latter may be considered a form of financial repression, which may have potential negative consequences. According to De Grauwe and Ji (2023, 2024), raising the minimum reserve requirements to 5 %, would reduce transfers to banks by EUR 30 billion; if the ECB raised requirements to 10 %, it would lower these transfers by EUR 60 billion. In their view, there is no economic justification for why bankers should be paid for holding liquidity while everybody else accepts not to be remunerated. The EP report is notably silent on whether it supports this or any other proposal on how to reduce the transfer of central bank funds to commercial banks.

Another issue raised in the EP Report concerns the compatibility of the ECB’s public sector securities purchases, which took place in the context of the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) and the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP), with the prohibition of monetary financing included in the TFEU. Most notable in this context is the statement that “the ECB’s purchase programmes are unconventional policies applicable only during crisis periods that, if not carefully implemented, risk contravening the prohibition on monetary financing under Article 123(1) TFEU”. The first part of this statement is problematic to the extent that it suggests that implementation of unconventional monetary policy measures should be limited to instances of crises. This disregards why central banks introduced quantitative easing (QE) in the first place. Central banks cannot lower their policy rates below a certain level (which may be negative), the so-called effective lower bound (ELB). This lower bound reflects the fact that economic agents will prefer to hold funds in the form of cash rather than deposit them in a bank that charges negative deposit rates (i.e. customers must pay to deposit their money). Thus, when inflation remained stubbornly below the central banks’ target (most often 2 %), they resorted to unconventional monetary policies, such as asset purchase programmes and forward guidance, i.e. communication about future monetary policy (Blinder et al. 2017). So, unless one is willing to consider such a situation as a crisis, the EP is in effect arguing that the ECB should not use QE if the interest rate has hit the ELB while inflation is below target.

The above sentence may also be misleading to the extent that it suggests that Article 123(1) TFEU limits public sector securities purchases to crisis situations. However, this is not the case. Article 123(1) TFEU only prohibits purchases on the primary market, thus directly from the issuer of the bonds (i.e. the euro area Member States), but does not make the purchase on secondary capital markets conditional on the existence of some sort of economic crisis. The statement in the second half of the sentence can also be understood as an indication that bond purchases may not take place under conditions that circumvent the prohibition of monetary financing. This is then stating the obverse. In its assessments of the ECB’s Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme and the subsequent PSPP programme, the Court of Justice of the European Union has made clear that the ECB must build sufficient safeguards into secondary markets interventions, mainly by ruling out that potential purchasers of bonds on the primary market know for certain that the Eurosystem is going to purchase those bonds within a certain period and under conditions that will make those market operators act, de facto, as intermediaries for the Eurosystem for the direct purchase of those bonds from the debt issuers.^[12] Providing some guidance of the types of measures that may be sufficient in this regard, the European Court has also stressed that the adequacy of the safeguards applied in the context of any bond purchases can be subject to judicial review.^[13]

Finally, the report is rather critical about the Transmission Protection Instrument (TPI) introduced by the ECB in July 2022. Under this instrument, the Eurosystem can purchase securities (in the secondary market) “issued in jurisdictions experiencing a deterioration in financing conditions not warranted by country-specific fundamentals, to counter risks to the transmission mechanism to the extent necessary.”^[14] According to the EP report, diverging interest rates in the euro area are generally “the result of different risk premiums on government bonds reflecting, among other factors, different approaches to fiscal policy.” It expresses the worry that “TPI interventions may conceal underlying fiscal challenges” and “stresses that TPI should be used under the conditions set by the ECB only to address financial market stress unrelated to economic fundamentals”. Yet, it is precisely because the influencing of interest rate differentials through the TPI could be seen as a form of unwarranted fiscal support aimed at concealing fiscal shortcomings that the ECB has attached a number of cumulative conditions to the activation of the TPI. These conditions include (1) compliance with the EU fiscal framework: not being subject to an excessive deficit procedure (EDP), or not being assessed as having failed to take effective action in response to an EU Council recommendation under Article 126(7) TFEU; (2) absence of severe macroeconomic imbalances: not being subject to an excessive imbalance procedure (EIP) or not being assessed as having failed to take the recommended corrective action related to an EU Council recommendation under Article 121(4) TFEU; and (3) fiscal sustainability: in ascertaining that the trajectory of public debt is sustainable, the Governing Council will take into account, where available, the debt sustainability analyses by the European Commission, the European Stability Mechanism, the International Monetary Fund and other institutions, together with the ECB’s internal analysis.^[15]

Of course, with these conditions attached to the activation of TPI not all economic risks that can be identified with TPI, such as price distortions that negatively impact the information value of bond prices of individual euro countries are covered.

5 The ECB’s Secondary Objective: Supporting the General Economic Policies in the EU

The ECB’s secondary objective is defined broadly in primary Union law as supporting the general economic policies in the Union with a view to contributing to the achievement of the objectives of the Union as laid down in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union, including the aim of establishing an internal market, the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment. This has triggered a debate about the exact scope of the ECB’s secondary mandate notably on the role of the ECB in climate change mitigation and the transition to a green economy. Among the major central banks around the globe the ECB has been rather vocal arguing that its objective “includes supporting the green transition of the economy in line with the EU’s climate objectives” (Cipollone 2024).

Although most observers will probably agree that climate-change related risks have to be considered as an important parameter in banking supervision and financial stability, the desirability of a more pro-active approach to the inclusion of climate change considerations in the application of monetary policy instruments is hotly debated among economists and legal experts alike. In fact, while major central bank have recognised the challenges arising from climate change, not all central banks see an active role for themselves in this as becomes clear from the 2023 statement of the chairman of the Federal Reserve: “We are not, and will not be, a ‘climate policymaker’.”^[16]

In the context of the ECB, two main concerns are the scope of the monetary policy mandate of the ECB and the impact that any climate change mitigation related activities may have on the independent position of the ECB. Both points find their roots in the fact that in determining its position and cause of action on such a complex phenomenon as climate change, central banks are walking a tightrope between being a policy-taker and a policymaker, potentially taking decisions that legitimately belong in the political realm (Tucker 2021; Amtenbrink 2025). This may not only pose challenges from the point of view of the scope of the legal mandate of the ECB, but may even threaten its constitutionally engraved independence.^[17] Cochrane (2020), for example, observes that “Central banks are rushing headlong into climate policy. This is a mistake. It will destroy central banks’ independence, their ability to fulfil their main missions to control inflation and stem financial crises, and people’s faith in their impartiality and technical competence. And it won’t help the climate.”

It is in the above context in which the rather stern warnings of the EP in its report can be placed, according to which “political independence requires the ECB to refrain from taking political actions” and the ECB is to “adhere to its mandate when interpreting or acting upon its secondary objectives”. In a clear attempt to increase the answerability of the ECB in this regard, the EP report “calls on the ECB to include a specific chapter in its annual report explaining how it has interpreted and implemented its secondary objectives.”

The EP report is notably more accommodating than critics such as Cochrane (2020), inviting the ECB “to further assess to what extent climate change affects its ability to maintain price stability” and “to continue its work on climate risk stress tests developed to assess the resilience of banks and corporations in the face of climate transition risk.” In addition, the report “welcomes the ECB’s activities to further enhance the Eurosystem’s risk assessment tools and capabilities in order to better include climate- and environment-related risks, particularly because climate change and extreme weather phenomena could lead to greater price volatility, especially in the agri-food sector.”

In the section on the ECB’s secondary objective the EP report also calls on the ECB “to respect the market neutrality approach in its monetary operations, while noting that the ECB acknowledges that market neutrality is an operational tool, rather than a legal requirement.” That this statement is linked to the issue of the ECB’s engagement in climate change mitigation becomes clear from the statement in the report that follows, namely that “the ECB’s actions to decarbonise its corporate bond holdings have not strictly followed a market neutral approach”. These statements reflect an understanding of monetary policy that stresses the need for an approach to open market operations that avoids market distortions. In recent years, several leading central bankers have argued in favour of a redefinition of the concept of market neutrality in the context of defining central banks’ role in the transition to a net-zero economy (Amtenbrink 2025). For example, the Bank of England has stated “that market prices materially under-estimate the risks and the opportunities associated with the transition to net zero”, which is considered to create “a divergence between today’s view of market neutrality and how a portfolio might look if prices did properly reflect those factors” (Bank of England 2021). In a similar vein, the ECB has argued in favour of a reassessment of the notion of market neutrality, arguing that climate risks are “mispriced in financial markets” (Schnabel 2021).

With the statement that market neutrality is an operational tool, rather than a legal requirement, the EP report seems to take a clear stand in a legal scholarly debate on the question of whether market neutrality is a principle or even legal obligation arising from primary and secondary Union law (e.g. Schoenmaker 2021; van’t Klooster and Fontan 2020; Colesanti and Monnin 2023; Solana and Goldoni 2024).

6 Digital Euro

With regard to plans on the establishment of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Europe that became concrete with the ECB’s 2020 Report on a digital euro (ECB 2020), the EP report places clear conditions on the introduction a digital euro both in terms of the applicable decision-making procedure and the conditions under which the introduction of a CBDC would be considered opportune.

As the preparatory phase for the possible introduction of a digital euro has started in November 2023, the ECB considers the digital euro as “imperative” for the resilience of the monetary system in the face of what has been described as a digital revolution that could “upset the delicate balance of the two-tier monetary system and disrupt monetary transmission, monetary sovereignty and the singleness of money” (Lane 2025). In parallel, the European Commission has proposed EU legislative measures as part of a 2023 Single Currency Package, consisting of three legislative proposals on establishment of the digital euro,^[18] on the provision of digital euro services by payment services providers incorporated in non-euro area Member States,^[19] and on the legal tender of euro cash.^[20]

The EP report observes that “the decision on whether or not to introduce a digital euro is ultimately a political decision that has to be taken by the EU co-legislators, given the profound potential impact of such a decision on a wide range of EU domains, including privacy, consumer protection, financial stability, financial policy and other areas that go beyond the strict remit of monetary policy.”^[21] In this context, the EP in unequivocal language opposes a scenario in which the ECB Governing Council introduces a European digital currency on its own. These comments can be placed in the context of the debate on the appropriate choice of legal basis in EU law for the introduction of a digital euro and namely the question of whether the ECB has the competence to issue a currency with the status of legal tender based on the TFEU and the Statute of the ESCB and of the ECB.^[22] This legal question has already been addressed in the ECB’s 2020 report (ECB 2020, pp. 24–25) and has thereafter been given ample attention in the legal literature (e.g. Grünewald et al. 2021; Mooij 2023; Palmstorfer 2025). The issue of whether the introduction of a digital euro requires a European legislative act has been linked to the objectives pursued with a CBDC, whereby it has been considered that “the issuance of a retail digital euro to directly serve the ECB’s monetary policy would necessitate a political mandate” that even goes beyond the adoption of a secondary Union law act in that it would require Treaty amendment (Grünewald et al. 2021, p. 1054).

With the above statement in its report the EP takes a clear stand that arguably surpasses legal considerations on the ECB’s competence to issue, on its own initiative, a digital currency that is equivalent to euro banknotes. It can be understood as a call by the EP for a more robust input legitimacy for the introduction of a digital euro, not least in the face of the sentiments in parts of the population of some euro area Member States on any moves to diminish the use of cash as a means of payments, that also the Commission proposals mentioned above try to address. It is no coincident that the EP report in this context points out that “the digital euro will only become a success story if it provides tangible added value for European citizens that they can understand”.

Regarding the conditions in which the EU co-legislators would decide to introduce a digital euro, the EP report stresses that it is for the ECB “to clearly demonstrate” the benefits of a CBDC, which according to the EP should relate to “enhanced strategic autonomy in payments, a higher level of competition in the retail payment market, potential to foster innovation in payments and finance, improved financial inclusion and a reliable offline backup payment system”. Moreover, reference is made to the need to balance interests, inter alia “on holding limits, privacy concerns, competition with private payment solutions and usability in a business context.”

7 Conclusions

The recent report of the European Parliament is quite critical about the ECB’s policies and its outcomes, notably the recent high inflation rates. However, the report does not offer an assessment of the ECB’s delayed response to the inflation hike. In our view, forward guidance based on inflation forecasts that were off the mark played a crucial role in explaining why the ECB reacted too late to the rising inflation. The report poses that when the ECB oversteps its secondary objectives, it touches upon the central bank’s independence. The EP supports the ECB’s independence, but also calls upon more frequent interactions with national parliaments. However, NCB governors cannot be held to account for the decisions of the ECB’s Governing Council aimed at price stability in the euro area as a whole by national parliaments. The report suggests that the use of asset purchase programmes should be limited to instances of crises, thereby ignoring that central banks introduced these programmes when they could not reduce interest rates any further while inflation was below target. The report criticizes the increase in interest payments on bank reserves as a consequence of the asset purchase programmes, but does not come up with concrete measures to address it. The report rightly argues that the decision on whether or not to introduce a digital euro is ultimately a political decision that has to be taken by the EU co-legislators and not by the ECB, not least to secure citizens’ support.