 So, let me welcome you to the second panel of this conference. It's not so often that I enter a foreign territory such as a room full of lawyers, but it's a pleasure all the same to be with you this afternoon. My name is Philip Lane. I'm a member of the Executive Board here at the ECB, and I'm involved with Monju Policy and Economics Directorates of the ECB. So, this panel I think has been nicely designed to talk about some key concepts and principles that we use quite a bit, but in the context not of our primary mandate, but of the secondary mandate. So, this panel is going to focus on the role of independence, accountability and proportionality in the context of the secondary mandate. So, we have a very good panel. So, it's beside me on the platform are Alexander Seale, who will speak in a minute, and Klaus Turi, and we're joined online, or will be joined online by Anne Kargan from the Bank of England. But before I hand over to the panelists who each will make some opening remarks, let me just briefly give you my own perspective from a Monju Policy point of view. Because this topic, I think, goes through different phases. It's one way to think about it, or has different dimensions. And two years ago, we had a Monju Policy Strategy Review at the ECB where the Governing Council, the National Centre of Banks, spent about a year basically going from a blank piece of paper saying, OK, how should we organise Monju Policy? And a lot went into that, including this issue. And of course, the kind of scope or what we mean by this differs over time and across different phases. So, at that time, two years ago, Monju Policy had many instruments. We had an interest rate, but the interest rate was stuck at minus 0.5 for our key deposit rate. We had several asset purchase programmes. We had a targeted lending programme to banks. And of course, if you have many instruments, that gives you optionality. You can say, well, to deliver price stability, I need some mix of those instruments, but maybe the mix of those instruments that I can execute can take into account secondary objectives. So, the set of possibilities then was very different to what we have now, which is basically Monju Policy is at one level in terms of active decision making, mostly boiled down to the interest rate decision. And of course, when you have one main instrument, it's hard to think of multiple dimensions when you have one instrument. That's not totally true because we still have a very large balance sheet, which is shrinking, but while we still have that very large balance sheet, it does create room for balance sheet policies. Let me emphasise, however, that even the, let's imagine the balance sheet shrinks quite a bit, so it's no longer a significant policy issue. We will still have an operational framework. We will always have one of our core roles is to provide liquidity to banks, and those banks in turn need to provide post collateral to obtain that liquidity. And even under normal times, collateral policy remains a very important area in which secondary objectives can maybe be taken into account. Other elements of the operational framework include the marginal reserve requirement, and you may have noticed this summer, we changed the remuneration of the minimum reserve requirement, and I'm going to say that was a proportional decision. You can ask me later. That is, but let me also emphasise going back to dimensions, the other big way I think we think about these issues is in relation to the interest rate policy, we have a medium term perspective. So we don't say we're going to hit inflation 2% every day or every week. It's over the medium term, and that is a flexible concept. How quickly we get to a medium term, we're very precise at the moment. We say we're going to hit 2% in a timely manner. So that level of precision allows us, again, to take into account a range of considerations. And maybe the last thing I'll say again from my economic point of view, one of the interesting debates, and is also prominent at Jackson Hole 10 days ago, is when we intervene, when there's essentially the risk of financial instability, for example, in March 2020, or previous episodes, or more recently with the Bank of England, with the LDI intervention last autumn, what's interesting about that is essentially we can think about interventions which in principle can be designed to be essentially neutral on price stability, which are quite important for stabilising the financial system. Sometimes they go together, the same policy can both stabilise the financial system and contribute to price stability. But sometimes you can think of them maybe separately. So that's another interesting dimension. So with that, I look forward to learning from the panel members and from the ongoing discussion. And so let me briefly welcome Alexander Seal as the first panel speaker. He's a professor at the Law Faculty of the BSP Business and Law School in Berlin and regularly lectures on constitutional and European law. From his resume, he's quite a broad range of expertise, including books on the history of the modern state, an introduction to constitutional history, and a textbook on the general theory of the state. And for your Christmas book list, an introduction to the German Constitution is to be published at the end of this year. So hopefully you'll make it there for the Christmas list. So with that, over to you, Alex. Yes, thank you very much for this kind introduction. And I'm obviously tempted to talk about the German Constitution now, but I won't. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. What should the ECB do with its secondary mandate? Or rather, from a legal standpoint, what can the ECB do with its secondary mandate? And in the following, I would like to answer this last question by taking a closer look at the relationship between the secondary mandate and the independent status of the ECB. Now I believe that the question what the secondary mandate actually encompasses and what instruments it allows the ECB to implement cannot be answered without knowing how independent the ECB actually acts when it reverts to its secondary mandate. Now to do so, I will start by briefly recalling, very briefly recalling, the general justification for the independent status before looking at possible consequences for the secondary mandate. Now, the independent status of central banks in general and the ECB in particular is so natural to most of us that we sometimes forget that at least in a democratic order, such a status needs some sort of justification. The idea of independence of course came up only in the middle of the 20th century. Due to the central banks now broadly accepted general tasks, tasks of safeguarding price stability that can lead to possible conflicts of interests if performed by a political institution. So from a democratic perspective, we therefore find a justification for the independent status by specific task. In other words, and this is vital for our general question, it is not central banks in general that need to enjoy independent status, but only central banks equipped with a task of safeguarding price stability. Central banks are independent because and as far as they safeguard price stability. Now what follows from this for the interpretation of the secondary mandate of the ECB? Well, if the independent status needs a task related justification, can we find such a justification as concerns the secondary mandate? Are there good reasons in other words to assign the task of supporting the economic policies in the union to an independent central bank? From a democratic and especially a German democratic perspective, the answer unfortunately is rather simple. No. Economic policy of any sort is nothing that requires independence from political authorities to be undertaken successfully. On the contrary, it is highly political and its controversial character generally requires it to be vested in an institution that is directly accountable to the people. Of course, the ECB is only obliged to support the economic policies in the union. That might lessen the problem, but clearly does not solve it entirely. How and when to support what specific element of the wide range of economic policies within the union will again be highly controversial from a political perspective. And as a consequence therefore, but not as the final answer, the ECB lacks the required democratic legitimacy when it offensively reverts to its secondary mandate. However, as the secondary mandate of course is formally integrated into the treaties themselves, it can hardly be interpreted as in any case breaching the European democratic principle. Now that leads us to two possible solutions. The first solution would be to interpret the secondary mandate as restrictively as possible. This could ensure the necessary acceptance of the measures taken, but unfortunately would at the same time render the secondary mandate practically negligible. The ECB would be more or less hindered to actively revert to the secondary mandate at all. In terms of content, the mandate would thus be more or less limited to prohibiting the ECB from actively harming economic policies in the union through its monetary measures. The ECB would thus have to implement possible economic consequences into its monetary policy, but would not be able to pursue any form of active economic policy, even if this were not accompanied by any risks to price stability. When the secondary mandate was formulated, at least some of the German participants might actually have had such a restrictive interpretation in mind as the wording of the treaties was, and this might come as a surprise, actually directly taken from the former German statute of the German Bundesbank. Having this history in mind, it comes as no surprise, therefore, that such a restrictive interpretation is the one the German Constitutional Court prefers. In its various decisions dealing with the ECB, it has always pointed out that the independent status requires a restrictive interpretation, not only of the secondary mandate, but even of the primary mandate. In other words, the German Constitutional Court has limited the secondary mandate to an absolute minimum and would stand in opposition to any interpretation that might allow the ECB to pursue any form of economic policies that might have an effect on the redistribution of wealth or even stricter any economic agenda at all. Now, is that it for the secondary mandate? Well, let's look at another possible solution that might even convince the German Constitutional Court, or rather the second Senate of the German Constitutional Court, ladies and gentlemen. We have the head of the first Senate here, of course, later on. Instead of restricting the secondary mandate, one could also think of restricting the independent status. Now, the scope of the secondary mandate could then be widened as far as the independent status was restricted. The term independence would thus be interpreted differently according to which part of the mandate the ECB is making use of in the concrete situation. The ECB would enjoy a wider degree of independence when it reverts to its primary and a narrower degree when it reverts to its secondary mandate. From a dogmatic point of view, such a different interpretation may at first seem strange. After all, the same term and the same treaty articles are involved in each case. Nevertheless, there are good reasons for such a differentiation. First, as explained, there is a close link between independent status and specific mandate. Independence is no matter, of course, but a direct consequence of the primary mandate. And in this respect, it does not seem too far-fetched to generally interpret the term independence mandate-related. This applies all the more since the concept of independence is by no means unabiguous in terms of content, but rather permits a whole range of different interpretations. Of course, the minimum requirements in terms of content will also have to be observed in this respect. Director instructions from other European authorities are therefore also prohibited with regard to the secondary mandate. However, it would certainly be possible to tie the ECB's actions more closely to the political institutions, not least the European legislator. And in fact, the ECB seems to have increasingly sought this proximity in recent weeks. The greater the extent to which such a tie-back would be possible and actually succeed, the more the ECB would then be able to draw on its secondary mandate without having to fear the acceptance problems mentioned above. Now, how could such a stronger political tie-back of the ECB look like in detail? One of the central criticisms of the second mandate is undoubtedly its vague scope. In this respect, Article 127 refers comprehensively to the again very broad and open catalog of objectives in Article III TEU. The ECB thus has, at least in theory, considerable scope of concretization and thus the possibility of pursuing an independent economic policy agenda. It is precisely here that the greatest concerns in terms of democratic theory are likely to arise. Now, one could thus think of limiting this goal independence by having the concretization and specification of the secondary mandate carried out by another body, namely the European legislator. In fact, the treaty contains comparatively few provisions for the letter with regard to the independence of the ECB. Direct instructions to the ECB are out of question for the legislature anyway, and Article 282 merely obliged it to respect the independence of the ECB. Now, the ECB statute, of course, which specifies its monetary policy activities and the instruments to be used, should be considered first. However, since the statute is adopted as a protocol, pursuant to Article 129 and is therefore primary law pursuant to Article 51 TEU, such an adjustment would require an amendment of the treaty and thus would be improbable and not really feasible in practice. Yes, Article 129 III, TFEU at least opens up the possibility of modifying at least certain provisions of the statute in the ordinary legislative procedure. However, these do not include the provisions on the concretization of the mandate. This brings us to Article 121 II TFEU. According to this article, the Council, on a recommendation from the Commission, shall prepare a draft for the broad guidelines of the economic policies of the member states and of the Union, and shall report there on to the European Council, which on the basis of this report shall discuss a conclusion on the broad guidelines of the economic policies of the member states and of the Union. Subsequently, it is again the Council which on the basis of this conclusion, it's a very interesting article, by the way, adopts a recommendation setting out these broad guidelines. So far, these Council recommendations have, of course, refrained from any influence on the ECB's actions. And this was quite clear and right in view of the primary mandate. Any influence in this area would not have been accepted by the ECB or the ECJ. Nevertheless, the situation is different for the secondary mandate. As just explained, within the framework of its secondary mandate, the ECB is active, only in a supportive capacity, but nevertheless, obviously in the field of the economic policy. The ECB activities, therefore, are necessarily at the same time a part of the economic policy in the Union as a whole, to which Article 121 explicitly refers. Neither does it differentiate between specific institutions, nor does it explicitly exclude the ECB as a possible address of the final recommendation. Turned differently, in its recommendation under Article 121, the Council might also define and specify the ECB's contribution to economic policy in the Union through its secondary mandate. In terms of content, this recommendation could, for instance, not only specify the secondary mandate, example, the fight against the climate crisis as an objective to be pursued by the ECB as a matter of priority, but also specify the permissible instruments to which the ECB should have recourse in this context. Now, what consequences would such a concretization by the Council have for the ECB's actions? First, from this point on, the ECB would be able to refer to the Council's recommendation when reverting to its secondary mandate. Its actions in the area of combating the climate crisis would thereby acquire the necessary democratic legitimacy, especially since the Council's recommendation is based on conclusions also of the European Council that is the member state leaders. The political responsibility for the ECB's action would thus be assumed by the Council and the European Council, which both would have the possibility to adjust or modify the recommendation at any time if they were dissatisfied with the ECB's behavior in this regard. Moreover, since it is merely a recommendation that is not legally binding, the ECB could also deviate from it at any time. Two constellations need to be distinguished in this respect. First, the ECB would, of course, be obliged to deviate from it if, and to the extent that, such actions would be incompatible with its primary mandate. The recommendation does not change the hierarchy between primary and secondary mandate. Secondly, it would also be possible for the ECB, at least formally, to concretize the secondary mandate independently, thereby leaving the recommendation completely or partially aside. In this case, however, it would risk that the measures it takes would not have the necessary democratic legitimacy so that either the ECJ or, more probable, the Federal Constitutional Court would intervene. Overall, this would provide the ECB with a required democratic legitimacy to make effective use of its secondary mandate. But without risking the flexibility it needs to exercise its primary mandate, in other words, a win-win situation. Let me conclude. In order to make the secondary mandate work, we should differentiate between two scopes of independence, a strong independence when it comes to the primary and a weaker form when it comes to the secondary mandate. This would allow the political institutions to concretize the secondary mandate, and thus, the ECB and to actively help in our common fight against climate change, the scope of which Frank Eldersen actually mentioned earlier this morning. Thank you all very much. Thank you. I know that many of the points you raised will come back in the rest of this panel and later on. So our second speaker is Dr. Klaas Turi. So let me welcome Klaas back to the ECB. He started his career in the Mongeau Policy Division of the ECB and, indeed, at the EMI beforehand, if I'm correct. And, of course, he decided to upgrade from economics to law with an intermediate stage working in the private financial sector. So more recently, he's been working on the EU economic constitutional model and economic constitutional law with, of course, a focus on the ECB on money. And two of his books into the Eurozone crisis are constitutional analysis and also the European Central Bank and the European macroeconomic constitution from insurance stability to fighting crises, which is, I think, a history book as opposed to a forward-looking book maybe. So let's see. So over to Klaas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for Kira Ciglioli and the ECB League of Services. It's very nice to be back here and also back in the same room where I remember sitting back in that room because this is why the press conferences were held early on. And they're being very, very nervous about how the markets would react to whatever the intuition had to say on a given situation. And that was somehow a good reminder of that the basic business of monetary policy can be quite tricky and challenging, particularly when you start something very new. I was given a chance to talk about some parts of the ECBs secondary mandate and mostly about priorities and proportionality. Here I have to say that I very much failed on most of the counts. The first count I fail about the secondary mandate. I will discuss it a little bit about the evolution of the ECBs mandate, the discussion about the evolution of ECBs mandate. Then I will discuss a little bit about what could be the current state as we see it now both from economic and constitutional perspective with regard to defining the ECBs mandate. And then I will move and also I think in the book I try to be forward looking in many ways and also thinking about not being involved in crisis all the time, but rather on the key tasks. I will go to seeing where could we get some guidance on how the ECBs objectives and other aims would be defined in a sustainable manner and also some words about how that process should be controlled. I will have some slides just to remind me of what I'm doing and then this was the which way do I, I'm clearly a lawyer now that the technology is starting to get behind me. So the evolution has reached its final stage. Okay, so first about the evolution of the ECBs mandate and the reason I'm hesitant to talk about secondary mandate is that I don't really understand the concept as such. To me it doesn't really exist in the legal literature so it's a little bit tricky, but I think it's more easy to see how the evolution has gone and what are the drivers of the evolution. The first phase was where I was also myself involved was the time when it was really treat interpretation. What did the member states confer when they conferred central banking to the ECB when they conferred monetary policy? What moved and the ECB on the other side tried to define what it is doing and then at the time quite naturally very strict view on monetary policy. It was mostly about all very much about monetary policy. It did discuss the support of other economic policies, but mostly by saying that the best contribution is made by maintaining price stability. And this was quite clear at the time. And then what is also in the objectives parts, particularly in the statute also in the 127 DFEU is the accordance or supporting the functioning of open economy and free market. And that was also discussed to some extent with regard to how the operational framework of the ECB and how it was supposed to tackle its monetary policy through banking sector, how that would be made in accordance with free market. So these kinds of issues were in the first stage. Then the next stage was the redefining the borders of common monetary policy. What do we mean by common monetary policy and naturally this was crisis led expansion. And here is the time when we get the court coming in. Somebody else giving, let's say, proper legal views and definitions on ECB's mandate. And this is, I think, one of the most problematic areas. I understand a lot what is being said, but I have to say that I don't think there's any central bank in the world except ECB that is defined by price stability mandate. I think we have very different definitions, but you don't define by one single objective. It's defined more broadly. And there could be good reasons, but I think this is the problematic part that when it was defined in such a way that monetary policy is defined by the aim of price stability, then the whole discussion about conferral and all these issues became part of discussing monetary policy transmission. And if I put my old economist hat on, I know that in monetary policy transmission, anything goes in many ways. I mean, I think it's genuine task of trying to get the task done, but it's a very illusive concept in legal interpretation. And this is where we get to the, let's say nasty business of proportionality, which I will discuss a little bit later. Then where we are now, I think it's now not redefining the borders of common monetary policy, but more redefining the borders of ECB. And this is where I think that the concept of secondary mandate is really coming to the fore. And I see two basic reasons for this. One is that once the ECB has expanded so much because of the, as Philip Lane mentioned, the asset purchases and so on going so far that it's now it's roughly 50% of the European GDP or Euro area GDP, it reached some like 70% of the Euro area GDP. The central bank is everywhere. And it's not only ECB of course, it's other central bank as well. But once you are in most of the areas, you are affecting a lot of the areas and there's also a lot of temptation how to use this being there for some other, mostly good causes. So that's one side. And then the other side is that there were generally new societal needs. One is environment as we know, it was not at the time when the treaty was made, it was not major issue and not in the scale. And I think it has increased dramatically over the years. And then digitalization is another area which is affecting the mandate of the ECB in a ways that we didn't see, for example, the digital currency. Let me just speed up. So where are we now? So if we look at the very broad area, I think we should start. And this is where I think court maybe was a little bit lazy. They didn't start from the start by looking at what is there in the middle in the thing. But what is the word in the middle down there? It's central. European central bank. That's the, really, I mean, it's a function, something where you are central to the banking sector. And we have some concepts, some ideas what is central, by what central banking means. And it's, I mean, it has, let's say, 200 years of quite established history and then let's say 100 years of even more defined roles. I mean, objectives have changed over the time. But the basic role in the economy and in the financial system has remained quite stable in central banking. So I think that could have been maybe slightly better starting point. And what we still are, clearly, is that the ECB is the policymaker but in practice only in monetary policy area. This is where the ECB is the one that calls the shots. This is the key element what is conferred to the ECB's monetary policy. With regard to support of general economic policies, I think the starting point was and still somehow is that it's the EU equivalent to the ECB paying attention to growth and employment. This was the starting point. The Fed's dual mandate was part of the discussion, all this idea that it doesn't ignore these other elements. And I think this is, to me, it still is a sort of non-isolation clause, a sincere cooperation clause that you don't isolate. I mean, you are independent but actually that independence should mean that you can engage in discussions and you can be active, you can be open. And I think this has quite often been the case but it's not necessarily more than that. What we still, the case is that, as Philip Lane also mentioned, that monetary policy is mainly cyclical too. It affects in a cyclical manner so structural policies do not often fit particularly well. In some cases they can but the basic underlying thing is cyclical policy. So that maybe should be remembered. And then finally, on where we are, is that I think we still don't really understand what kind of societal force central banks and their balance sheets are and how far-reaching the direct and indirect effects are and how manifold they are. So this is the big issue, I think of, I mean, it's a question of concentration of power but I think to me at least it's even more concentration of risk that if it's one party that is calling to shots, it's always a risk even if it did best of jobs. And I think what is good in the strategy review of the ECB is that it has engaged in discussions concerning its role in the society and impact on society. So it's acknowledged that this is a real issue and it's a real responsibility. So now going to actual topic, what are the other aims where we can go? And I would start from what is included in the central banking and this is the something that would give the evolving idea that we still derive tasks and aims from the idea that we are the central bank of the area. We have to take care of banking sector, liquidity, payment systems, stability, this kind of issues. And then we are there to support general economic policies in many ways as central banks do. But central banking at the same time is also evolving concept. So I don't think the ECB or the EU legal practice should define it itself, but to be a little bit open to discussion on how central banking is evolving and seeing it from there. Environmental considerations, yes, I can see that that has special reasons now why it's been raised, we all probably do. And I think they're the easy way of having, let's say a little bit more leeway in that direction is the use of Article 11 TFEU as a real responsibility of the ECB to engage in its own action to include environmental considerations, particularly climate change seriously inside the framework. But then we have to remember that it's support but not responsibility for general economic policies. And I think this is particularly difficult field because when we go through this regional value discussions, we are easily in a very, very difficult area because we can discuss various programs, how they affect, but I think we have William Boycher in his quite recent book had calculated using a reference to an old program. So nobody here has been responsible but for the first lotro program where the ECB gave three-year money to banks that that was maybe subsidy of some 90 million and 90 billion to banks. And I think it makes sense to program, but we are talking about, I mean, and this is very respected economist, William Boycher is not doing it to shock, but it's just basically making the fact that when you are doing dealing with this kind of amounts of money, you are affecting the society and that's part of being central banking. But then to open the whole discussion about distributional and value discussions, I think that will be very, very difficult task to handle. And then the additional part, what I think is that what we have to be quite careful is is not to tie hands off of monetary policy going forward. I will conclude with some ideas, how to guide and maybe delimit the ECB and how, I mean, because of course we can trust them, but as we know, control is better as some old Russian said, some time ago. And I think here, my starting point would be that now the legal discussion, I'm not particularly fond of and I'm not particularly trustworthy that the legal part will be the control mechanism or delimiting mechanism. And I think now the key problem, as I mentioned, is that the defining central banking and the ECB through price stability objective alone and then using proportionality argumentation is not particularly helpful. And it's not particularly fruitful in many ways. And also what it has meant is that the whole issue is now about monetary policy transmission mechanism, which is not particularly fruitful for legal discussion and also it's not particularly fruitful for public discussion involving public to understand what the central bank is doing. So basically still the control, main control to me would be still the proper giving of justification, care and reason and transparency and this both to the public and to EU parliament. There I would say for the parliament, I would ask them to maybe up their game a little bit to be slightly more demanding on justifications. I think this is more on their side than the ECB side. And then finally, I would say that the main accountability we didn't discuss accountability because we were not supposed to but still the main accountability issue is to the people of the neuro area that the job is to give them a currency that holds its purchasing power. And basically if you fail in that area, there's all these other mandates and aims are becoming quite small in comparison. And I think even let's say providing for environmental climate change, I think you most definitely need to maintain anchor price stability, even I would say even better than now in order to allow for longer term investments that it requires. So failing that area, the other areas you would do a lot less for environmental protection. Thank you. Thank you, Klaus. And the third speaker on the panel you can see on screen is Anne Cargan who's definitely head of legal within the legal directorate of the Bank of England. And she's particularly responsibility for advice on climate and environmental matters. She's also been involved with the legal experts group of the network for greening the financial system and has arranged a cross-organizational climate summit of UK regulators and central government departments on the legal aspects of the UK's climate agenda for financial services. So with that, let me hand over to Anne. So good afternoon, Anne on screen. Good afternoon. Well, I'm going to pick up some of the themes that other presenters have laid out here and will focus on the climate aspects that the banks involved in and the structures that are supported by those. The climate subject matter of this panel is an issue that we're all grappling with globally. Where is the dividing line, for instance, between public policy, monetary policy and the regulatory remit? And how do we manage issues where the secondary competition objectives or support of economic policy might conflict with actions to mitigate climate risks? Next slide, please. Thank you. These are all huge questions and they are front and centre of the minds of the people that we serve and the firms we regulate our parliamentarians and our governments. There are strongly held views that go both ways, that competitiveness is key or that preparation for the inevitabilities of transition to net zero is paramount. In the UK, the financial services reform agenda has influenced, has been influenced by this debate. And as you can see from the slide, there have been many concerns raised in parliament here during the passage of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023. Next slide, please. Back again. Thank you. The Bank of England has an overarching objective to protect and enhance the financial system of the United Kingdom. And that is implemented through its four primary functions, monetary policy, macro-predential financial stability, micro-predential regulation of the firms it regulates and micro-predential regulation of financial market infrastructure. Through each function, the primary objectives are paramount. We find that climate risk from the direct effects of climate change and transition either flows directly into the climate objectives or will have the capacity to do so as the globe moves through transition to net zero. This year, Jay Powell of the Fed, Christine Lagarde of the ECB and Andrew Bailey of the Bank of England have all commented on the approach of their respective institutions as regards climate change. It is striking that although the statutory frameworks of these great central banks are different, all three leaders have drawn out similar themes, independence, democratic mandate, and managing the financial risks of climate change. At the symposium on central bank independence in Stockholm in January, Jay Powell perceived that in order to maintain broad support for its mission within a democratic society, the Fed must remain independent, but also that it should stick to its mandate. He considered that to adopt new goals without such statutory underpin would undermine the case for independence. When climate change interacts with its functions, Jay Powell considered that the Fed had a narrow but important responsibility to require that banks understand and appropriately manage their material risks, including the financial risks of climate change. Christine Lagarde at the summit for the new global finance impact in June, reiterated that it was for governments to lead the fight against climate change and to honor their commitments to transition. She highlighted that central banks must within their mandates support the greening of the financial system. And for the ECB, Christine Lagarde highlighted that climate change is a priority because it affects inflation, affects the central bank balance sheet, and because it is a financial risk for the bank's supervise. Most recently in June, before the Treasury Select Committee, Andrew Bailey reiterated that the Bank of England must stay focused on its primary objectives and view everything else through that lens. He underlined that climate change is a risk to financial stability and prudential regulation because firms are holding long-term assets that can be at risk from climate transition. And in the future, climate change could have an effect on the evolution of the economy. Though he considered that in the bank's view, it was not an issue in current policy setting within the MPC. So the Bank of England takes counter-climate change within the exercise of all its functions. But the context is always managing financial stability and Andrew Bailey was clear, and I quote, the bank is not there to make climate change policy, that is other people's job, not ours. Next slide, please. Turning now to the substructure that supplements the operation of the primary objectives, the bank has a complex statutory framework of secondary objectives and other matters to which it must have regard when making decisions. Understandably, the government's policy imperative in creating this structure is that the actions of the bank in exercise of its functions have a wide effect on the economy and economic actors. So we should be taking such matters into account when making our decisions to pursue our primary objectives. Next slide, please. Well, what climate actions have we taken and how do these fit within our statutory framework? You can see here a list of the main areas of development since 2019, and along with our colleagues in other central banks, this represents a huge step change in how we conceive of, regulate and integrate climate change within our functions and our operations. As previously mentioned, the bank's focus is to take action in pursuit of its functions and primary objectives, first and foremost. But in addition, in our own operations, we have applied the same rigor to ourselves as we expected of others. And we have taken action with the aim of providing exemplars to catalyze action within other firms. The bank's transition plan, most recently, which includes our notes manufacturer, is a good example of this discipline. Another example is the MPC. Next slide, please. Thank you. And as part of our functions of a central bank, we undertake market operations to ensure changes to interest rates are transmitted through the system. The Corporate Bond Purchase Scheme is a monetary tool, monetary policy tool. For as long as the MPC maintained its target for CPBS holdings, the bank undertook periodic reinvestment operations to replenish the scheme as bonds matured. One such operation took place in late 19. The next, in November 21, was the first to incorporate a new greening methodology. As Andrew Bailey said at the time, our strategy in greening the CPBS is to help incentivise firms to put in place and adhere to credible plans for reducing their emissions. Incentivising change is more powerful than immediate divestment to encourage the significant shift in behaviour required across the economy in order to achieve net zero by 2050. We hope that by being transparent, our approach will encourage and enable other investors to further develop strategies to green their portfolios. So you see here themes of proportionality and actions to support and catalyse change in action. In terms of the legal structure, you'll recall that the MPC's primary objective is price stability. In 2021, price stability could be delivered through the purchase of corporate bonds without consideration of green factors. In this instance, the secondary objective to support the economic policy of the government and the expression of that policy by the Treasury in its remit letters has persisted in expanding the scope of actions available to the bank and enabled it to develop a methodology and issue a market notice in relation to the purchase of corporate bonds. Since 2021, as Philip saluted to, managed policy has changed its focus and the scheme is in the process of being unwound. The bank has sold the green portion at higher prices, reflecting the premium awarded to such bonds in the market. Next slide, please. The FPC identifies and monitors risks that threaten the resilience of the United Kingdom financial systems as a whole. As you recall, its primary objective is protecting and enhancing financial stability. The secondary objective is to support the economic policy of the government and at least once a year, the Chancellor makes recommendations about the FPC's responsibilities for financial stability and also about the government's growth and employment objectives. These are set out in the remit letter which has reinforced the relevance and importance of climate change. We are now at a point in the transition to net zero where the direct effect and transition effects of climate change are a part of the FPC's business as usual assessment of known macroeconomic risks. As part of our functions, as a central bank, we ended, oh, no, I'm sorry. I've lost my place. Hang on a second. With the PRA, the FPC undertook a climate biannual scenario stress test on certain PRA authorized firms in order, first, to test their resilience and second, to identify firms' reactions and the potential for inadvertent consequences of those actions on the macro-prudential stability of the United Kingdom. This has led to updated supervisory expectations to firms by the PRA and for the FPC, monitoring climate change as a business as usual exercise regarding known macro-prudential risks. How far and fast to move is always conditioned by proportionality, taking into account such factors as the potential for inadvertent macro effects, the impact of supervisory guidance on firms' own safety and soundness and their business. As all central banks are finding, there is a fine balancing act. This is not a static situation and proportionate actions will change in nature over time as the globe moves through the transition to net zero. In 2022, the climate stress test scenario, the primary and secondary objectives of the FPC have aligned internally and with primary and secondary objectives and regulatory principles of the PRA. Turning to the PRA, next slide, please. The actions of the PRA from 2019 as noted in the slides above have so far generally run directly through the primary objectives. Financial services and market tax 2023 introduced a new net zero and environmental regulatory principle. The net zero principle is enforced, the environment is not yet enforced. Regulatory principles engage on a decision-level basis and relate to making of rules and policy. They do not override the primary objectives and sit in a hierarchy below the secondary objectives of competition and competitiveness, yet they do operate with the other regulatory principles such as proportionality as applicable to the circumstances of the case to influence policy decisions. And last slide, last slide, please. Thank you. So the formulation of the new regulatory principle refers to the need to contribute towards achieving compliance by the Secretary of State of the net zero targets where the regulator considers the exercise of its functions to be relevant to the making of such a contribution. I have included this whole quote from Baroness Penn who is the permanent parliamentary secretary to the Territory and it takes my talk full circle. Baroness Penn's comments in Parliament are a recognition by the government that the regulator's role in the transition to net zero is a supportive one within the context of their functions and within the statutory hierarchy of objectives, secondary objectives and other matters to which they must have regard. As such, her comments can be seen as a part of the continuum from Jay Powell and Christine Lagarde through to Andrew Bailey and reinforcing the distinction between the Democratic mandate of government to enact actions to take countries through the transition to net zero and the supporting role of the central banks in all their functions. Thank you, Anne. I'm mindful because Anne has an important event later on this evening. So I want to let her go early. So in order to let her go early what I want to know is collect any questions or comments you have from the floor that would be directed to Anne and then she'll have been able to respond to you. So over here that is a... It's on. It's on. Okay, thank you. It's not directly to Anne. It's directed all panel. So, sorry. Claudia Schwarz. Claudia Schwarz. My question is whether it still makes sense to talk about primary and secondary mandate when we talk about forced inflation and we consider that 50% of the access assets in the bank, balance sheet of the banks are connected and are highly influenced by biodiversity and ecosystem service. If this distinction still makes sense that was my question. It's for the all panel. Thank you. Okay, thank you. And we will come to it in general but I'll let Anne also address that. But let me just collect the consequences for Anne so we're different from here. Anne. Thank you, David from Carlos Othello University. So what appeared or struck me from the presentations is that or at least a comment that I also want to introduce is that rather than whether to support climate policies or not is part of the secondary mandate is whether there is a legal argument to support them over other objectives. Because if one looks at guidelines from governments they are very long wish lists because governments don't like to leave anything out. So in the end it is the central bank that chooses which policies of those can it support according to its mandate which leads me to the framing that that's probably why central banks tend to frame climate change in terms of the primary mandate because it is the of those government policies it is the one that has a very clear implication for the primary mandate of monetary stability or price stability but here comes the interesting thing even though this impact should be something scientific or an objectionable at least this is what science inclusively tells us the emphasis that central banks make on the impact and the importance for the primary mandate varies depending on how politically controversial the issue is in the wrong jurisdiction. So although the things are common the emphasis that the Federal Reserve makes is different from the one that the ECB makes depending on how politically controversial the issue is. So in other words is the whole debate about secondary mandates a little bit of a sideshow from the real issue? Again no doubt for the counter but let me just again pause and see if there are consequences in relation to Anne's contribution. Well I'm going to ask Anne something. So Anne and again kind of reading across because very helpful to have this comparative perspective and of course we could also do it with many other central banks around the world who also have to deal with these issues but my question to you is in terms of explaining well is it an issue and if it is an issue is the Bank of England try to explain the proportionality of its decisions whether it's to the Treasury Select Committee in its publications or in other fora. So you tell me if there is a kind of fixed approach to articulating proportionality of decision making. Okay. Thank you very much. The other questions as well that came up. Thank you. I'll take the second question first in terms of support to climate over other objective other objectives. I think and also your point about the way in which different central banks refer to their mandates and their actions in terms of the political climate of each country. I think that's inevitably going to be the case because you have to live in the society that you're serving but in terms of supporting climate over other objectives I think that is dependent on particular circumstances of the time so at the moment you might have a situation where Andrew Bailey has said that the monetary policy he's not seeing environmental matters for example coming into or climate into the operation of monetary policy tools at this stage of the transition but that we are in a continuum and you don't know how that will look in five or ten years time so in that sense I don't think it is a matter of preferring a particular objective or a particular subject matter over another. I think it's an understanding of where you are in the circumstances of the time and how that affects your functions and then how that feeds through your primary objective and then subject to that your secondary objectives and in terms of proportionality of decisions how we do describe that again I think that is driven by a particular case so you saw in the CPBS Andrew Bailey's comments about a preference for assisting and providing the circumstances for firms themselves to transition and that is a much better way of behaving than withdrawing from markets and you see the same comments from the FPC from the most recent stress test and the comments that feeds in then to the comments of the PRA in terms of the updated supervisory expectations you're not simply saying yes go ahead undertake your business plan and withdraw you're saying undertake your business plan but make sure that you are supporting your customers through transition themselves and that is in itself an expression of proportionality in terms of impact that policies might have and then the last one in terms of primary and secondary mandates where ecosystems are concerned ecosystems and the impact of environment on financial services and financial stability especially is probably a less developed area than the impact of climate change or pure climate change without ecosystems on the primary and secondary mandates so I think that one is I think that is not for grams but essentially I would say that the same principles apply that you look through your primary objectives you look through subject to that the secondary objectives and see what effects because the central banks and the UK central bank in its different functions is a supporting mechanism it's not a policy generating mechanism you look at what the effects are of destruction of habitats on financial stability and you deal with that as and when necessary sorry please I just have a small question for Ann before she disappears I was just curious I don't understand but you did a very good presentation very exhaustive and of course Bank of England is different from us in the scope and in port as it gives to financial stability broader is more monetary stability is also there you mention both and I would be grateful for explanation when you come to the secondary objective or the environmental contribution I had understood that falls mainly on the financial stability or does it also falls on the monetary can you explain that please in terms of sort of factual I think it depends on factual nexus at any particular given point in time so at the moment it's the FPC that's taking the lead here in terms of whether or not degradation of habitats for example have an effect on financial stability okay so he said depending on the depending on the concrete situation it could be either financial stability or monetary stability supply stability yes it depends at the moment it certainly doesn't seem to be monetary stability it's being looked at by the FPC sorry I've just lost you I think you can still see me I've lost you at the moment the timing to thank you again for your contribution okay so let me thank you let me turn to the other two partners and the questions I had connect a little bit to the questions from the floor class in this presentation mentioned that essentially there probably was a long sounding history of viewing the secondary mandate as essentially something akin to the dual mandate of the Fed which is all else equal you should pay attention to growth and employment and this connects very much with our medium term perspective on price stability but I think that that's kind of full wisdom a little bit so when we do have that dimension maybe not very well articulated when we do have the environmental dimension or whatever else you want to put in there how do you prioritize so that's one question second question is I think coming up to so Alexander emphasized which is basically is there indeed ways to kind of think of independence differently with respect to the secondary mandate compared to the first and again for us when we look at the Bank of England when they receive an indemnity there's an ex-Sandy agreement with the Treasury about who bears the financial risk in relation to asset purchasing and the Fed has something similar as well with something that didn't happen or does not happen with us and then the third which is a bit heroic is essentially saying well because as was mentioned we definitely think of a lot of the climate change and by the way the biodiversity issues as well it's I think straightforward enough to think about them under the primary mandate but let's imagine we didn't want to fully rely on that is there a way we should be using the secondary mandate as well and just by the way for advertising the Bundesbank in June had a very good conference basically about biodiversity and monetary policy and if you you can look at the slides and presentations on the website but it's a very good interesting way to think about it so so maybe Klaas if you have any reactions to what these questions are what you heard so far thank you there were quite a few so I am struggling to figure out which one to go for but I think they were overlapping as well to some extent and I think one of the the key issue is and it relates to the also the question of distinction between primary and secondary mandate and I think that's somehow makes the broader case in the sense that I think it makes sense because it is the way of distributing responsibilities between member states but also between different policy makers and it doesn't exclude the idea that particularly if as you mentioned that in the fields where your main task as a central bank is directly linked to issues where you can improve and make your case or make your contribution to climate change and biodiversity and so on I think obviously you should do it but I still think that those priorities are there in a treaty and you can't change them just because you feel like something else is important I think this is and it doesn't take value away from from other objectives but I think the more generally one of the key issues is I think when we think about these issues is actually two related things one is that I think that the issues mainly arise when there's a conflict between first and second it's easy to talk about whenever they come with the same thing you can of course contribute to whatever in the world all the nice things if you contribute to good things and I think in this sense we are now in a slightly different situation where you actually have to have restrictive monetary policy you are not only delivering good things to the world you are actually providing longer term future I mean and for that shorter term sacrifice and then it becomes more clear what are the who's benefiting and who's losing because it's not a question of who's benefiting most from the action but rather something different and then as I mentioned I think there if you arise environmental issues for example even as I mean I first to admit that they're important but I think you would do a bad thing for the environmental issue because I think the idea that the ECB would solve the problem I think that's why for example Bank of England Fed has been very clear it's not because they don't care about environment or sustainability I think they are clever responsible people of course they are scared of the whole thing as we all are they know that they shouldn't give anybody an impression that they take care of it that in the political circumstances it's the politicians because it's a nasty thing you have to give it to people there's a lot of cost to pay there's a huge amount of investment there's a lot of things we have to change and when you change you have to change the relative prices in the economy you have to make carbon negative or biodiversity negative actions more or less desirable than some other actions and this is for politicians I don't think it's for the ECB you can do something with the balance sheet fine I think in that respect it makes sense but I don't think it will solve the problem because I mean the market will then as we know even if you prioritize something in your own balance sheet and the markets will I mean they are still mostly interested in risk and reward I mean not so you are not selling the market for what the pricing will be and why they will invest it who will invest in what products rather so not to exaggerate your own role so in the priorities I think there I think the first question you have to ask is what is my role in the whole thing when it's clear that it stems from price stability or it's clear that you have a big role and then this gives all the areas that are close to link to it give you a major mandate force to prioritize then I wouldn't regard Article 11 in a way that I think it will be used a lot more because it's quite clear and I think it will become even more forceful in the coming years and when it's been implemented but I think there and this was one of my key ideas is that you should also maybe particularly if you look at the ECB what the central I mean you can look around you can learn I think this is why Homo sapiens was better than Homo nirvandallis because we learned from others they had bigger brains but they didn't learn from others but we can we can learn from others so I think you can you can be in the game of learning and then thinking that you're the central bank not the price stability institute but the central bank of Europe and what is then implied from that what the and independence I think this is the this is too difficult for me and understanding how do you because the same I think there's this it's like soap I mean if you say that you have different levels of independence and accountability for different measures I think we basically affect the way measures are labeled rather than I think it's still one accountability for the institution and somehow I mean I think it's heroic idea and I would support if you can make it happen but I'm not sure that with the instruments because I think there are actually less instruments than I actually implied very often I think to me a central bank is it derives most of its power from the creation of money or creation of central bank money and then it has different implication different ways that it manifests itself but it's still the same power so you use it one way or the other when you are active in the marketplace so I think yeah I stop there thank you Alexander yes thank you very much and after this this very controversial first pilot I'm happy to say that we at least disagree a little Klaus that's fantastic yeah so first of all does it make sense to talk about a second and a second first and a secondary or primary and a secondary mandate from a legal perspective of course the answer is yes I mean it's in the treaties we've got to work with the treaties right so what can we do but I see the point of course that we have to sort of rethink what actually follows from the fact that we don't look at the economy anymore as being neutral it's not neutral to us it does matter what kind of assets we purchase suddenly right because we somehow believe that certain assets are bad to be quite honest and others are better or good or green or whatever so we have to sort of see and what actually follows from that for a differentiation that is in the treaties that was established when we didn't know anything about climate change we didn't think about climate change at the time and we never would have thought of a central bank being responsible for the transition to net zero I mean that was something nobody would ever have thought of at the time so that brings me to the question what we are actually fundamentally doing with this conference and generally what we are doing in central banking at the moment I would say we have seen a fundamental change how the ECB is perceived of course right by the political sphere and especially by society monetary policy used to be regarded as being too complicated too technical too boring to be quite honest to be actually discussed in public it was seen and regarded as somewhat as being unpolitical that was never true of course it was always also a political institution the ECB but this perception has definitely changed since the financial crisis where the ECB and especially the public actually became aware for the first time maybe even of how powerful central banking actually is or can be so we now have a sort of new institution on the political sphere and this is not a sort of very small negligible but it's a powerful institution it's a really powerful institution that obviously can do a lot of good probably also a lot of bad things so I would say finding that the ECB is such a powerful institution first of all it's a good thing now what we are doing right now is that we have to find a way how to use this power for the common good and that is of course a common good beyond the price stability target so that's what actually is happening at the moment in central banks and I think that's a good discussion we should have and I do sincerely believe that the European Central Bank it would be a mistake sort of to leave that power just somewhere on the road and say well we have this transition to net zero we have to face we have to succeed with but we just leave one of the most powerful institutions aside and say well it's too complicated so I disagree I would say of course it was no task for a central bank 20 years ago but why not use this power if we can find a way to use the power for the transition process to go to net zero and therefore what we see with this different approach that we see with central banks they're trying to do that already differently why are they trying to do it differently because it's political as you said it depends on the political surrounding obviously how central banks can act in this sphere and if it's political then we need some sort of participation then we need some sort of legitimacy and I would say that that is something that the ECB should focus on when it thinks about using its power and then indeed it doesn't really matter is it the primary mandate or the secondary mandate if it's actually allowed by the public by the democratic by the people as we said in the first panel then I would say it's okay but at the moment we're seeing a situation where the central banks are trying to put it into the primary mandate and trying to say well nothing has changed it's the primary mandate we should have just looking at it differently we're putting climate change in there yet but in actual fact it's price stability and so on but no one really believes that seriously it's obviously something different and if it's something different then we need to find ways to make this approach from a democratic perspective and that's the debate we're having at the moment I would say and why not try something new why not try something for instance like different degrees of independence when it comes to primary and secondary mandate in order to do so Very good so I'm going to collect a number of questions and I'm going to try and be reasonably balanced across different sections of the room so I was looking in this direction so I'm going to start over here so let me say there's a gentleman in a grey suit here oh no here thanks for who said oh no thank you very much the University of Rotterdam the the later in the afternoon the vassar some of the claims that are being made so it seems to me but super interesting definitely Alexander I congratulate you on just going for it I think you're making a very important point from a legal perspective and that is assigning redistributional tasks to independent agencies is a constitutional abnormality so for a lawyer there is no principle there is no natural law according to which that should be assigned to independent agencies so and this is why your point you're making about task related independence or autonomy we could discuss that is so important and indeed if we say the theoretical and empirical case has been made for centre bank independence when it comes to price stability mandates where is that political evidence when it comes to other task whether it is climate mitigation whether it's fighting economic inequality and the like and this is not saying it is not there maybe but where is it and I ask this as a lawyer to economists or political economists to come up with it now coming to your idea lovely my question to you is how legitimate do you think the European semester is and the way which brought economic policy guidelines are formulated in there because it seems to me that a lot writes in your model writes on that and the other question is where in that model comes in then this distinction that we still have is a symmetry that we have in EMU where we have centralized monetary policy but in principle at least on paper economic policy stays with the member states so where is then there a limit I stop here thank you thank you very much my name is Daphne Ploegre from the Dutch central bank I have a question also for professor Alexander Thiele so I was quite interested by your proposition on how to solve the issue of the vagueness of the scope of the secondary mandate and your proposition to solve this through council recommendations and my question is why did you choose the council as a body considering the fact that if you want to solve the issue of democratic legitimacy we also have a European parliament which is directly elected by the European people who could play this role and maybe also taking into account the fact that if you look at recent resolutions of the European parliament on the annual reports of the ECB it's actually talking about which issues the parliament thinks the ECBs would focus on when talking about the secondary mandate and it does not only include climate or environment thank you we're going to move to the middle section and more or less the same role if you put your hand up again please hi thank you and a page from EUI professor Tila to a very quick remark question your scheme for independence on a gradient works in an ideal theoretical division between economic and monetary right we could agree on that moving on if you follow through with your scheme and imagine that this is put in place what happens when certain tasks are called up such as we discussed earlier environmental policy that could go either way under the primary mandate or the secondary mandate and then you have legal challenges from I don't know Karlsruhe mostly that tell the ECB look this is not your primary mandate this is your secondary mandate you don't have that much independence I mean you're opening a can of worms a bit thank you very good and just here right there Alexander next critical comment I am matching the following scenario the European Council issues a recommendation to the European Central Bank saying the European Central Bank should focus its balance sheet policy on green bonds issued by the member states and the member states need these green bonds in order to fund climate adaptation measures in Italy wherever in the European Union do you see a conflict with the operational independence of the Central Bank do you see a conflict with the prohibition of monetary financing under article 123 I'm asking this question because in the end we're not simply talking about concepts automatically we must take into consideration the limited number of instruments the European Central Bank possesses and in the end policy is only interested in a few instruments and they are really risky for the independence of the European Central Bank you wanted to add something yeah okay two brief remarks and then one question brief remarks first you mentioned that when the master treaty was drafted there was no idea of climate change yes but internalization of cost was there and here is exactly what we're talking about now in calculating looking into things tilting this is what we're talking about second point on your independent different level this is something that the German Constitutional Court has put in a footnote of the SSM judgment yeah it's a very German statement now the doctrine is divided whether for the civilist an institution for which the treaty says it is independent for this you can make this differentiation practically would be complicated intellectual of course you can make your argument but for me this problem does not exist for the secondary objective because the secondary objective says DCB supports someone else so when you support you are not independent in the same way because you need to rely on the policymakers and follow what they do you are independent in deciding whether or not you take action which will be dependent from whether or not this is contradicting the primary objective but I would say rather than talking about different types of independence and the need for the democratic intrusion there it is the necessity that DCB has because it supports to look into the direction that the policymakers in recommendation could be one but there could be other things and then I would have a question I don't know if there is still time for that but what do you think about proportionality is there a different requirement for the demonstration of proportionality when you do the secondary objective some people argue that I am not convinced but I would like to hear your views thank you Cary just mentioned it says support I would like to add it says shell there is a legal obligation to do something under the secondary objective to be shell support now in many of our utterances in many of my own speeches I have said we are not climate policy makers we are climate policy takers many of these speeches I have shared with our colleagues in the Fed and I would say and I asked them do you agree with this we are not exactly on the same line we are not climate policy makers we are climate policy takers I said it with so much emphasis because many times we find ourselves defending against strawmen I am not saying that this was done this afternoon but I am just saying more generally strawmen arguments that somehow we are making policies in terms of policy we are not doing that but it does say under the secondary objective we shell support we are not doing that I have one more thought going back to the climate litigation speech I gave there has been already a central bank of the European system of central bank that has been sued for not doing enough the debate for the last two or three decades has always been aren't they overstepping their mandate I am not saying that that is not a relevant question it is a very relevant question we think about it every single start to think much deeper about the other side of the coin. And that is, are we doing enough? Are we not under delivering under our mandate? Also our secondary objective. And that is something that, and then I will stop. I made the argument here that there is no longer the luxury that we can avoid to at least think about what it could be if judges find that corporates, that states, but also that supervising central banks are already today under the positive obligation to do our fair share. This was found in the Orgenda case. It was found in first instance against the Shell case. It has not yet been found against the bank. It has not yet been found against the supervisor. But I don't think that we can now exclude at least that risk that that might be the case. Now, if you then try to tie these things together and it might be that we are being found that we also have to do our fair share, if you read that the Shell support, if you make sure that we never overstep our mandate, then that question of are we doing enough, I think is a very poignant one and a very urgent one. Thank you. Thank you, Frank, and we're already a little bit over time. So I noticed that if people want to ask questions, they can buttonhole the speakers during the coffee break. So, Alexander, if you can just don't try and be comprehensive, just try and pick and choose what to respond to. Thank you very much, Philip. Yes. Well, let me start by simply sort of trying to address one more time what I'm actually trying to do. The first thing we all can agree to is that we are facing a fantastically horrendous challenge when it comes to the climate change. Second, we have a very powerful institution that might contribute to this, to this overcoming this challenge. I'm talking of the ECB. So the question I'm asking is how can we bring these two together? Because the fight against climate change is something probably we all can agree on in this room. But when we look at the society, it's controversial. I'm coming from Germany where we had a debate on a radiator law that was crazy. So we see this is highly political. How to go about this challenge of climate change is highly political. So what I was trying to do was I was trying to find a way to use the power the ECB might have, but still ensure the necessary acceptance of its actions taken by the public. Because it's no use having a sort of a central bank then dealing with these questions and using all its credibility and then in the end not even being able to succeed in its primary mandate, for instance. So we need to find some sort of institutional arrangement that makes it possible to do that. And I do sincerely believe that we will only manage to do that if and as far as the ECB has the necessary democratic legitimacy that is required to take action in such a very highly political field. So yes, indeed, in an ideal world now, I would sort of construct such an institutional arrangement. But I have to work with the treaties. And that brings me to your question concerning parliament. There's simply no provision that actually would allow the parliament to do that directly. And Article 121.3 is sort of a provision that at least gives the council such an opportunity. I have to work with the treaty. So that's the reason. I would love the parliament to have the power to do that. But there's no article in the treaty to do that. So and we're not going to amend the treaties in time, so we have to work with the treaties. On the other hand, I found that in the end it's a recommendation quite a good solution because indeed the European Central Bank can deviate Christoph, it's not bound by the recommendation. So if there is such a problem with the primary mandate, it could deviate from the recommendation. That's only sort of the idea. It's no binding recommendation. It's something where the European Central Bank could say, no, that's not feasible due to our primary mandate, for instance. So is this the ideal solution? I would say no. Is this a solution? Maybe. And answering Frank, has the ECB so far underdelivered? Yes. I'm pretty sure from a legal perspective, ignoring the secondary mandate as the ECB has practically done for the last 20 years is something that clearly underdelivers from a legal perspective. So making the secondary mandate somehow work is something we need to do as lawyers. And finally, Chiara, yes indeed, we need to support and that we don't need different independence levels or degrees, you say, but already deciding to support what kind of economic policy is a political decision that can be very controversial. Why is it only climate change? I mean, the Article III includes everything. And you're picking climate change now because everybody's talking about climate change, but tomorrow you could pick something else. Frank, you're a policy taker, you say, but what policies are you actually going to take? And that's a political decision. And I would like some political institution telling me that you can take that. Very good. Do you understand that? OK, so let me, in closing, I think it's quite an interesting setting, but I do want to push back against a couple of things. Absolutely, climate change and more generally, it turns out, is absolutely front and center for a primary mandate. I mean, I lived every six weeks in a multi-policy cycle. What the hell are we going to do about X, Y, and Z, where to talk around the world? How is that going to affect our projections for inflation and GDP and so on? But let me connect to something Anne Carkin said as well. So one level is that. It's already there in the multi-policy cycle. But second, and this connects both the climate change issue and financial stability. Price stability is, and you actually said earlier on, it's multi-cyclical, it's not strict. One level, yes, but there are these kind of tail risks facing the European economy. And prevention or kind of guarding against tail risk goes a long way. And if you go back to 2008 and all that happened after 2008 and say, why, you know, some prevention in the decade before that could have gone a long way. I think prevention now in terms of the climate risk can go a long way. And, you know, in the world of economics, there's an interesting hypothesis. People who work for central banks, financial regulators, most of your pay should be 50 years from now. Deferred pay, which can be yanked if you don't do your job. Because the horizon, you know, we can omit a lot of things now or do a lot of things now, which have consequences for decades. And then I want to push back because Alexander seemed to indicate a while ago that boring was a negative value. It's the highest compliment you can pay at the central bank to say that's quite boring, but that's what we like. So, Sodi, I would say we want to restore that to where it should be. So with that, it looks like there's now like an 18-minute coffee break before the keynote. So, thank you.