As soon as it has been decided, it is already about to be tested: the new strategy of the European Central Bank is to be applied at the next meeting of the ECB Council, the highest body of the central bank, next week on Thursday.

In interviews, ECB President Christine Lagarde said she was expecting “an important meeting”, that there would be “some interesting variations and changes” - but also conflicts.

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in business.

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"I have neither the expectation nor am I subject to the illusion that we will achieve unanimity in all decisions that we make," said Lagarde in an interview with the newspaper "Financial Times".

Rather, there will be "some deviations, some slightly different positions, and that's okay."

In the ECB Council, it is particularly controversial how the central bank can return to a kind of normal state after the crisis.

While Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann is pushing for bond purchases to be scaled back after the exceptional situation, other ECB council members are warning against getting out of the crisis program too quickly.

In the end, the new strategy is said to have been adopted “unanimously” in the Governing Council.

Before that, however, there was a lot of discussion about content, and even individual formulations.

In particular, it was fought over how the ECB should behave if inflation temporarily exceeds the new inflation target of 2 percent instead of “below but close to 2 percent”.

In the end it was agreed that there would be inflation rates “moderately” above the target for a certain period of time.

Lagarde reports that the ECB Council therefore went to the Taunus retreat for another two days for the new strategy.

"We plowed through some of these topics for two days and watched football together."

Despite the common strategy, further conflicts seem programmed in the Council. Within the new framework, the “weaving of monetary policy” definitely needs “several colors,” said Lagarde: “Unanimity at every single weaving moment is therefore not a prerequisite.” But the more the council can agree, the broader the agreement, the better it is .

Meanwhile, the Reuters news agency reports that, according to economists, the ECB will shut down its bond purchases in the fall and then stop at the end of March as planned. According to the survey, 36 out of 51 economists, or 71 percent, assume that the euro watchdogs will slowly melt away the bond purchases of their emergency program called PEPP after their September meeting. 39 out of 55 economists, or 71 percent, expect the ECB to stop their PEPP purchases in the first quarter of 2022. The poll took place between July 5th and July 12th.

The EUR 1.85 trillion PEPP program is currently one of the most important weapons used by the monetary authorities in the fight against the economic consequences of the corona crisis. According to the previous plans, it should run until at least the end of March 2022. According to the survey, economists assume that the entire purchasing framework of the program will be exhausted. The mean of 39 responses was 1.85 trillion euros. The lowest forecast was 1.5 trillion euros.