Second, it stipulates that EU and national authorities must respect this independence and not seek to influence the members of the ECB’s or the NCBs’ decision-making bodies in the performance of their tasks. The second pillar of independence is functional independence. The ECB has been given the autonomy to determine which policy tools to use to achieve its primary objective of price stability.
According to the latest data from the Labor Department, a little more than half of the net number of jobs created since employment began growing in 2010 has been generated by firms with fewer than 250 employees, and most of that amount was accounted for by firms with fewer than 50 employees.1 One of the reasons I wanted so much to be here this evening was to be able to acknowledge these important contributions.