MECB Update: May 1999
In the Autumn 1998 report, The ECB: Safe at Any Speed?, the authors discussed how the ECB would operate in the prevailing climate of global financial and economic instability. They expressed concern about the Bank's readiness to meet the exceptional challenges facing it and offered constructive suggestions for consideration by the ECB itself, and policymakers throughout Europe. In this May Update, published after the issue of the ECB's first Annual Report, the authors assess how well the ECB has tackled the challenges it faced. They conclude that the ECB has avoided many of the dogmatic positions into which it may have fallen and has proved open to ideas and suggestions. The team concludes:
'The ECB quickly emerged as the main, some will say as the only, policy-maker managing the macroeconomic developments in the European Union. It has been a stabilising force in Europe.'
A full MECB report is published each year, complemented by a Spring update - this is the first MECB Update. This Spring Update is mailed free to all purchasers of MECB 1 and cannot be purchased independently.
