One thing we can use, is to look at how things have been before. The empirical national economist’s traditional method is to gather data, to structure data and to seek correlations between different economic variables. Data is gathered from history, the correlations found are historical ones. For me, traditional forecasting is all about using history in various ways to tell us something about the future. But of course it is not always the case that things behave in the same way as before. Sometimes developments take a new path, a path that we had not imagined. Spring 2020 was a good example of this. When the crisis came, history was not much help to us. Apart from being unexpected, each crisis is unique. The April Monetary Policy Report therefore did not present any forecast. Instead, it presented two scenarios showing two possible developments over the coming period. I consider that this was as far as we could go when we could not use history to help us. To me, it has been natural that monetary policy in recent months has been very much in the here and now. The problems arising required immediate measures. The measures taken have made monetary policy more expansionary. And we cannot rule out the possibility of setbacks. When we can once again interpret inflation statistics and when we can once again use history to say something about the future, monetary policy can also become more forward-looking than it has been in recent months.
But this does not mean that there are no important tasks for the Banco de España – or other participating countries’ national supervisors – to perform in the SSM, in addition to the functions that remain intact as they are not assumed – or are assumed only partially or in exceptional circumstances – by the SSM. In recent months there has been talk of the Banco de España becoming devoid of its powers. This reflects a lack of knowledge or misunderstanding of how the SSM is organised and how it will operate and is reminiscent, in a sense, of the talk afoot when Monetary Union came into being and the ECB assumed responsibility for the main monetary policy decisions. The model then adopted entailed full decentralisation of monetary policy implementation. This meant that it relied on the national central banks for its implementation (in fact, credit and deposit institutions have no direct operational relationship with the ECB) and that in practice, although the ECB assumed decision-making powers, there was no decrease in either the workload or the staffing needs of the national central banks. BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  Albeit for different reasons, the start-up of the SSM is expected to have a similar impact on workload and staffing needs at the Banco de España and at the other national supervisory authorities. *** In any event, the creation of the SSM poses an organisational challenge for the national authorities.