Monetary policy The ECB/Eurosystem has a mandate to maintain price stability in the euro area as a whole. Our monetary policy focuses on this overriding objective, thus providing a nominal anchor to the euro area economy. All our internal work, our analysis and assessment of economic information, our policy discussions and policy decisions are clearly directed at this aim.
I am deeply convinced that this is the best contribution that monetary policy can give to the welfare of the euro area. Attributing additional roles to monetary policy, such as that of directly aiming to reduce divergences across sectors or regions in the euro area, would overburden monetary policy with objectives that it cannot deliver and to the detriment of its primary role.