The ECB was an early advocate of goal transparency. The commitment to the famous definition of price stability in 1999 and its clarification in 2003, “below, but close to 2 per cent in the medium term” are the most important cases in point.
The latter step was taken to underline the symmetry of our price stability objective, meaning that downward deviations from the definition are just as undesirable as upward deviations. I now invite the distinguished members of our panel to address the question of transparency in monetary policy each from their own point of view. 1 Chydenius, A.: Memorial on the freedom of printing.