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REPORT (2024/2054(INI))

On European Central Bank – annual report 2024

A-10-2025-0003

Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs · Rapporteur: Anouk Van Brug

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✦ In shortFull textProcedure & committee votes
✦ In short · AI summary of this text, generated 4 Sept 2026

Written by a language model from the full text only; every figure comes from the text. The paragraph links open the paragraph a statement rests on — check the text itself before relying on it.

The resolution assesses the ECB's 2024 annual report, welcoming lower inflation but urging caution on rate cuts and faster balance sheet reduction. It calls for the digital euro to complement cash, with privacy safeguards and cost-based compensation for banks, and for the ECB to stick to its primary mandate. It asks the ECB to improve models, include owner-occupied housing in inflation measures, and address gender imbalance in its leadership.

Committee position. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs proposes a resolution that welcomes the ECB's actions but calls for improvements in transparency, model accuracy, and gender balance.

Key points

  1. Welcomes the ECB's role in safeguarding monetary and financial stability and stresses its statutory and political independence.
  2. Calls for full use and enhancement of accountability arrangements between the ECB and Parliament, without prejudice to independence.
  3. Notes inflation disparities and the cost-of-living crisis, stressing the need to reduce inflation to the 2% target to protect lower-income households.
  4. Regrets persistently high core inflation and calls on the ECB not to lower interest rates too quickly, while assessing sectoral impacts.
  5. Recalls the principle of monetary dominance and calls for prudent fiscal policies and adequate implementation of the new fiscal framework.
  6. Welcomes the decline in headline and core inflation but notes the ECB's delayed response and invites it to improve its models.
  7. Calls for accelerating the inclusion of owner-occupied housing in the HICP and supports scaling back asset purchase programmes.
  8. Asks the ECB to mitigate the subsidy from interest on bank reserves and to monitor balance sheet reduction to avoid monetary financing.
  9. Stresses that TPI should only address market stress unrelated to fundamentals and calls for responsible fiscal policies.
  10. Welcomes digital euro progress, calls for clear communication of benefits, privacy safeguards, holding limits, and a cost-based compensation model.
  11. Calls on the ECB to adhere to its mandate in pursuing secondary objectives and to report on how it implements them.
  12. Calls for gender-balanced appointments to the ECB's Executive Board and Governing Council, and for objective merit-based processes.

Who is affected

  • The European Central Bank and the Eurosystem, which are asked to adjust monetary policy, improve models, and enhance transparency.
  • Credit institutions, which receive interest on reserves and are tasked with implementing the digital euro.
  • Euro area member states, which are urged to pursue prudent fiscal policies and ensure gender balance in central bank appointments.
  • European citizens, who are affected by inflation and the potential introduction of the digital euro.

Figures and deadlines

  • 2.2% HICP inflation in the euro area in November 2024.
  • 2.1% projected HICP inflation in 2025, 1.9% in 2026, and 2.1% in 2027.
  • 2% target inflation over the medium term.
  • EUR 3 trillion in bank reserves held at the ECB in December 2024.
  • 10.6% peak headline inflation in October 2022, down to 2.2% in November 2024.
  • 7.6% peak core inflation in March 2023, down to 2.7% in November 2024.
  • More than EUR 120 billion interest paid to credit institutions in 2023, at least 0.8% of euro area GDP.

Legal basis: Articles 119, 123(1), 125, 127(1) and (2), 130, 282(2) and 284(3) TFEU, and Articles 3 and 13 TEU.