The communication problems of the ECB

After the governor of the Bank of Italy, Ignatius Visco, who issued a warning to the ECB to improve the communication hitherto made up of “too harsh messages that scare rather than accompany”, Fabio Panetta, member of the ECB’s governing council intervenes on the merits of monetary policy issues by saying no to pre-established rate hikes after February. In an interview with the German newspaper Handelsblatt Panetta essentially says that there is too much uncertainty about economic data for the ECB to commit itself in advance and unconditionally on a specific line, and that after next month’s meeting decisions must be based on the evolution of factors such as inflation , energy prices, wages and the development of the global economy. Any decision unrelated to the prospective evolution of the economy for Panetta would deviate from a data-based approach. Words that have important weight at a time when the markets appear disoriented on monetary policy expectations.