Profits should not be used to pay disproportionate bonuses, but rather to strengthen balance sheets, in order to safeguard the supply of credit. 2  BIS Review 39/2010  The activities of the ECB and the national central banks of the Eurosystem are not subject to any election cycle.
In fact, the opposite is true: the long-term focus of their activities is explicitly safeguarded by a wide-ranging institutional arrangement that ensures the full independence of the ECB and the national central banks of the Eurosystem from political and any other influence, at both the European and the national level.