COLUMNISTS It is not easy to be a central banker these days. Take the European Central Bank. In theory, it has a fairly straightforward task of combating inflation and ensuring price stability. In practice, its single and well-defined mandate of keeping eurozone inflation close to but below 2 per cent is proving a challenge, to say the least.
By continuing to remind us all of its inflation-busting credentials, the ECB may in fact be doing quite the opposite and stoking inflationary pressures. Indeed, its hawkish declarations last week about a possible rise in eurozone interest rates seem to have contributed to the unprecedented spike in oil prices last Friday.
