ECB announces decision to publish meeting minutes

The European Central Bank (ECB) announced on Thursday its decision to begin publishing minutes for its monetary policy meetings.

Though the Bank of England (BoE) and the US Federal Reserve (Fed) already report the deliberations at their respective policy meetings, the ECB had been debating the possibility for the better part of 2014.

The ECB explained that it will now begin publishing regular accounts of monetary policy discussions from January 2015. “Accounts will offer a fair and balances reflection of policy deliberations,” the ECB promised in a press release.

The accounts will be released four weeks after each meeting and the first publication will cover the 22 January 2015 meeting.

“The accounts will contain an overview of financial market, economic and monetary developments,” the ECB said.

“This will be followed by a summary of the discussion, in an unattributed form, on the economic and monetary analyses and on the monetary policy stance,” the monetary authority added.

Furthermore, the ECB announced that new six-weekly Economic Bulletin will replace the Monthly Bulletin in order to coincide with the new-six-week cycle for monetary policy meetings that also will begin in January.