ECB’s Escrivá: Central Banks Should Act as a Counterbalance to Populism

17 January 2025

ECB’s Escrivá: Central Banks Should Act as a Counterbalance to Populism
José Luis Escrivá, governor of the Banco de España. Photo by the Banco de España under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member José Luis Escrivá on Friday said that central banks should act as a counterweight to increasingly populist policies.

In a panel at an event on central banking independence hosted by Banco de España in Madrid, Escrivá, who heads the institution, said that amid the rise of populist policies, ‘we central banks have to see how we communicate with society to act as a counterbalance of that trend’.

Another risk central bankers at the ECB had to face was Euroscepticism, according to Escrivá, who called this trend ‘dangerous’.

Banco de Portugal Governor Mário Centeno, who also participated in the panel, said that part of the job of central bankers was not to convey uncertainty.

‘People expect that those who make decisions on monetary policy are able to explain why, despite the complexity of the situation,’ he said. ‘Because there are millions, hundreds of millions of decisions that are taken based on what we do.’