Second, the end of the economic boom and the rise of inflation in the 1970s increased our awareness of the importance of sound money and the need for monetary policy to be aimed at maintaining price stability. Third, the disinflation process that followed served to emphasise the benefits of conferring responsibility for this policy upon an independent central bank.
However, among those developments that have most influenced the role of Europe’s central banks in recent decades, there is one which stands out as being pivotal. I am referring, of course, to European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).