ECB’s Makhlouf: ‘Our Task Is Not to Make Profits but to Ensure Price Stability’

31 October 2023

By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Gabriel Makhlouf on Tuesday said that price stability took precedence over the profits or losses associated with assets on the Eurosystem’s balance sheet.

In a blog post on the website of the Central Bank of Ireland, which he heads, Makhlouf said that ‘the central bank’s balance sheet is a policy tool.  Our task is not to make profits but to ensure price stability.’

Monetary policy could lead to losses on balance sheets, he said, as a result of the efforts to achieve price stability.

‘But that is one of the consequences of having our balance sheet as a policy tool and our overriding commitment to deliver price stability’, he said.

‘I expect us to report losses in the years ahead as a result of the monetary policy measures taken in the pursuit of price stability over the past decade, coupled with the current level of interest rates to return inflation to our target’, he said.