Jens Weidmann, President of the Deutsche Bundesbank since 2011, has asked Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to terminate his contract early at the end of the year.
Weidmann gives personal reasons for this.
"I have come to the conviction that more than 10 years is a good time to start a new chapter - for the Bundesbank, but also for me personally," Weidmann wrote in a letter to the Bundesbank staff.
ECB President Christine Lagarde and colleagues in the Central Bank Council thanked Weidmann with a view to the latest strategy discussion: “A symmetrical, clearer inflation target has been agreed. Side effects and, in particular, financial stability risks should be given greater attention. A deliberate overshooting of the inflation rate was rejected. "
Behind Weidmann's decision, however, there is likely to be a disillusionment about a long-term loss of influence in the management of the European Central Bank, which, in his opinion, is not only developing in the wrong direction in terms of monetary policy. Weidmann has made it clear in the past that the activism that the European Central Bank is showing, for example in climate policy, goes too far from his point of view for an institution whose principal mandate is to secure the value of money.
The dissent in monetary policy becomes clear in Weidmann's words: It will be decisive for monetary policy not to look one-sidedly at deflation risks, but also not to lose sight of prospective inflation risks.
A stability-oriented monetary policy will only be possible in the long term if the regulatory framework of the monetary union continues to ensure the unity of action and liability, monetary policy respects its narrow mandate and does not get caught up in fiscal policy or the financial markets.
"This remains my firm personal conviction as well as the great importance of the independence of monetary policy," said Weidmann.