ECB, under fire, changes rules over publishing speeches
(FRANKFURT) - The European Central Bank announced Thursday that it has changed the way it publishes potentially market-sensitive comments by top officials after it came under fire over the issue earlier this week.
In the past, the ECB has traditionally made speeches by its executive board members available to media in advance with a strict publication embargo, in order to allow journalists to prepare their articles for rapid dissemination to the financial markets.
But the rule has been under scrutiny for some time and "from now on, there will no longer be an embargo," a spokeswoman said.
Instead, the speeches will in future be published on the ECB's website as soon as the official has started speaking.
"The aim is for as large an audience as possible to have access to the comments at the same time," the spokeswoman explained.
The rule-change comes a few days after criticism of the late publication of remarks by executive board member Benoit Coeure at a closed-door function in London.
Speaking to a dinner for acadamics, bankers and investment fund managers, Coeure revealed that the ECB would temporarily ramp up sovereign bonds purchases under its quantitative easing (QE) programme in May and June ahead of a traditional summer lull on the financial markets.
The information proved market sensitive, weighing down on the euro. But it was only released, under embargo, the following morning, sparking accusations that function participants had been given an unfair advantage.
"This was an evening speech under the Chatham House rule, which would not normally be published. In this case the intention was to publish the speech at the time it was delivered but an internal procedural error meant this did not happen until the morning," said an ECB spokesman.
"The ECB made a mistake ... and is punishing the press," a journalists for French newspaper La Tribune wrote in an Internet editorial.
The ECB's reaction was "very strange", since no journalist had broken any embargo, he argued.