It has engaged in many arguments about public policy within its sphere of responsibility and competence. It won some of those arguments, and lost others. It has had its share of critics, and still does. Through all that it sought to call things as it saw them, even if it tended to put its views a little obliquely at times.
Furthermore, one should consider the price of oil in real terms. Not surprisingly, consumer prices reacted immediately and sharply to the jump in oil prices. The ECB staff have revised their forecast on HICP inflation for 2004 slightly upwards to between 2.1% and 2.3%. Inflation in the euro area in September was 2.1%.