Specifically, the law requires the Bank of Mexico to be accountable to the Mexican Senate. What “autonomy” means is that, by law, no longer can any governmental authority, such as the President, the Secretary of the Treasury, or the Senate, strong-arm the Bank of Mexico into providing credit, that is to say, printing money for public spending.
For Mexico, autonomy for the central bank has been a seachange. Over the last decades Mexico’s inflation has been brought down to remarkably lower and more stable levels. In the 1980s it averaged 69 percent, and 20 percent in the 1990s. Inflation then declined to 5 percent in the first decade of this century, and to only 3.8 percent so far this decade.