The ECB and Its Watchers

At the conference "The ECB and Its Watchers" central bankers, financial market participants and academics discuss current issues of monetary policy and financial stability.

Since 1999, when the ECB took up its mandate, about 400 ECB watchers from all over Europe, North America and Asia regularly come to the conference to get first-hand information and to debate with members of the ECB Governing Council, presidents from euro area central banks as well as representatives of international organizations and renowned researchers. Thus, the conference series has become an established event in the agenda of many participants.

In recent years, ECB board members Philip Lane, Fabio Panetta, and Isabel Schnabel, former ECB board members Peter Praet, Benoît Coeuré, and Vitor Constancio as well as the central bank's governors of Germany, France, Italy, Belgium and Ireland have been on the podium. Also Hyun Shin of the Bank for International Settlements, Vítor Gaspar of the International Monetary Fund and the economists John B. Taylor and Lars Svensson shared their insights. Usually, the president of the ECB gives the opening speech.

Since 2004, Volker Wieland has been organizing the conference series, at first as Co-Director of the Center for Financial Studies (CFS) and since 2012 as Managing Director of the IMFS. From 2015 to 2017, Günter Beck, Research Fellow at the IMFS, was responsible for the conference organization. The conference series was first organized by the former President of Deutsche Bundesbank, Axel Weber, during his time as Director of CFS in cooperation with Otmar Issing who then served as Chief Economist of the ECB.

The 2020 conference formed part of the European Central Bank's (ECB) strategic review. All speeches and discussions of that event are available as IMFS Interdisciplinary Study.

The next conference will take place on March 20, 2024 at Goethe University Frankfurt's Campus Westend.

Please note that attendance of "The ECB and Its Watchers" conference is by invitation only.

General inquiries: Jakob Liermann
Media contact: Natascha Lenz

Looking back:

  • IMFS Working Paper 192 by Otmar Issing "On the Importance of Central Bank Watchers" (PDF)
  • 20 years "The ECB and Its Watchers" (PDF, 4,57 MB)
  • 10 years "The ECB and Its Watchers" (PDF, 1,71 MB)