Feedback on the input provided by the European Parliament as part of its resolution on the ECB’s Annual Report 2021

6Transparency, accountability, gender equality and other aspects

With regard to the resolution’s call to strengthen the ECB’s accountability visa-vis the European Parliament, the ECB attaches great importance to its accountability relationship with the European Parliament and is committed to working with the Parliament to further improve it. The accountability relationship has been characterised by flexibility and evolved in line with greater demands for scrutiny. The frequency of interactions has increased, new dialogue formats have been created, and existing formats improved.^[29] For example, beyond the regular interactions such as the monetary dialogues and the written questions, additional hearings and visits to the ECB on topical issues, such as the strategy review and the digital euro, have been organised. On the digital euro, the ECB has regularly exchanged views with members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, for example through dedicated public hearings, and provided written update reports on the progress made during the project’s investigation phase. The ECB highly appreciates the scrutiny and the insights received from interactions with the European Parliament as well as the opportunities to better explain the ECB’s policies to the elected representatives and citizens. As the ECB President noted in the European Parliament Plenary in February 2023, the ECB stands ready to agree on a formalisation in writing of the accountability practices between the ECB and the European Parliament.^[30] This is a testament of the good relationship between the institutions and makes explicit the ECB’s commitment to ensuring an effective discharge of its accountability obligations. The ECB will continue to respond to scrutiny requests by the European Parliament and will actively seek ways to improve the interactions with its members, in line with the provisions of EU primary law.

Concerning the resolution’s call to better report on positions taken by the ECB in the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, including in writing, the ECB stands ready to provide such reporting within the boundaries of confidentiality pertaining to international bodies and the applicable legal framework. It should be noted that ECB senior officials who participate in the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision are required to follow the Committee’s organisational regulations. These regulations include provisions that i) qualify all discussions, papers and analyses as confidential; ii) inhibit the sharing of information and documents unilaterally; and iii) explicitly oblige members to ensure confidentiality when speaking in public. For general information on the ECB’s work in international fora, where the ECB is represented by the its Executive Board and ECB members of the Supervisory Board, the regular hearings of the ECB’s President, Vice-President and Supervisory Board Chair (particularly when presenting the ECB’s annual reports) as well as the annual visit of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs to the ECB are appropriate occasions to ask questions and further discuss the international dimension of banking regulation.

As regards the resolution’s call that the ECB extends the cooling-off period for senior salary tiers also to employees of lower salary bands, the ECB notes that

a review of its ethics framework for staff is currently ongoing. In this context, the ECB is carefully assessing the suggestions for improvement formulated by the European Ombudsman as a result of her own-initiative inquiry into the ECB’s policies and practices for the prevention of revolving door” cases.^[31] Once the review of the ethics framework is completed, the ECB will inform the European Parliament of its outcome.

Concerning the resolution’s call to develop a strategy on how to deal with lobbyists and increase transparency of staff-level contacts beyond the Governing Council, the ECB notes that it is fully transparent about its regular interactions with market contact groups. To deliver on its mandate, the ECB, like other central banks, must have frequent interactions with financial market participants and other economic agents to obtain relevant input and information from key stakeholders that help to deepen understanding of the dynamics of the economy, the financial markets and the banking sector. These interactions, similar to those at the level of the Governing Council, are based on good governance principles and adequate safeguards, ensuring equal access and a level playing field. The ECB is fully transparent about such interactions and publishes the agendas and summaries of the meetings on its website, as well as the membership composition and the mandates of its contact groups.^[32]

With respect to the ECB’s whistleblowing tool, the ECB reiterates that the tool is fully aligned with the principles of the EU Whistleblowing Directive.^[33] The ECB’s framework provides a user-friendly tool allowing anonymous reporting, as well as strong rules to protect whistleblowers against retaliation. 2022 was the second full year of operation of the tool, and in the course of the year more than half of the whistleblowing cases in the ECB were received through this tool, most of which on an anonymous basis.

On the gender balance across its staff, the ECB is committed to improving the diversity of its workforce and building an inclusive culture based on dignity, respect and belonging. The ECB’s Diversity and Inclusion strategy embraces all facets of diversity and their intersections. At the same time, reaching a greater gender balance in management positions has proved challenging and remains one of the key objectives. Since 2020, when a new ECB gender strategy was launched, the ECB has implemented several measures to achieve greater gender balance. For example, it has enhanced its outreach efforts to attract women, working closely with female employees’ networks. It has redesigned the ECB Scholarship for Women, relaunched the mentoring programme, launched a development programme for staff in administrative roles and introduced guidelines for business areas on inclusive allocation of career-critical tasks. The ECB has also continued its Women’s Leadership Programme. Taken together, these measures have supported progress

with the gender targets: at the end of 2022 the ECB had achieved its targets at some levels and narrowed the gap at others (see Table 1). Regarding the 2022 targets for intake of female staff,³⁴ the ECB met its target of at least 50% for hiring and promotion at management level (all management and senior management levels). The intake targets at (team) lead, expert and analyst levels were missed by between 10 and 6 percentage points, but a range of 40%-60% overall has been reached. As regards the 2022 targets for the share of female staff,³⁵ the ECB achieved its targets for management positions (all management and senior management levels). While targets for experts and (team) leads were narrowly missed, by 2 and 1 percentage points respectively, the gap at these levels narrowed. The share of women continued to grow at analyst level, helping to extend the pool of women eligible for further career progression. The progress made shows that gender parity is achievable thanks to concrete and determined actions across a wide range of areas. The ECB will therefore continue to strengthen its efforts to achieve a better gender balance.

Table 1

Targets for intake and share of female staff in 2022

Source: ECB.

In 2022 the ECB launched a charter on equality, diversity and inclusion together with

28 institutions from the European System of Central Banks and Single Supervisory Mechanism. The ECB will continue to keep the topic high on its agenda.

Lastly, as regards the suggestion to establish an independent evaluation office, the ECB notes that it is committed to the highest standards of policymaking and recognises evaluation as a crucial component of it. The ECB engages in a wide range of evaluation activities relating to its analysis and decisions.

For example, extensive reviews of the ECB’s monetary policy strategy took place in 2003 and in 2020-21.³⁶ Furthermore, ECB staff carry out research to examine monetary policy decisions, for example by analysing the impact that asset purchases have had on inflation. The efficacy of the entire research output is also regularly evaluated by external academics, the last occasions having been in 2004 and

³⁴The targets are for women as a percentage of people the ECB hires and promotes in the relevant salary bands. They apply to internal and external recruitment campaigns, as well as to recruitment from reserve lists or through promotions to the next salary band.

³⁵The percentages of women in the relevant salary bands.

³⁶See The ECB’s monetary policy strategy”, press release, ECB, 8 May 2003, explaining changes to the monetary policy strategy and The ECB’s monetary policy strategy after the evaluation and clarification of May 2003”, speech by former ECB President Trichet, 20 November 2003, with background on the strategy review. See the ECB’s website for an overview of results and background of the 2020-21 strategy review.

2011.^[34] In addition to this, the ECB has conducted targeted reviews of its projection errors and made these available to the public in its regular publications. Most recently, the ECB published an article in its Economic Bulletin explaining why its models had underestimated inflation following the energy price shock in 2022.^[35] The ECB continues to reflect on best practices for evaluating its policies taking into account the state of the art in the central bank community.

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