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Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, Benoit Coeure
Another top official at the European Central Bank has made a thinly-veiled swipe at the U.S. administration, following comments made by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin which caused the dollar to slump against the euro.
The greenback tanked to a three-year low Wednesday when Mnuchin said that a weaker dollar is beneficial for the country. This recent depreciation is causing jitters in Europe, where a stronger euro could impact export-focused companies and jeopardize ECB plans to reduce monetary stimulus.
“We’ve seen lots of volatility being created recently by different statements — I think that’s not helpful,” Benoit Coeure, executive board member of the ECB, said Friday at a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“Any discussion on the exchange rates should be sent back to where it belongs, which is multilateral bodies, which is G-7 and G-20,” he said.
“Volatility isn’t helpful and if that would reach a point where this would create any unwanted consequence for us, any unwanted tightening of monetary policy, we would have to reassess,” Coeure added.
The euro has risen over the last few months due to the economic recovery in the region, but the appreciation has also been largely fueled by a weaker dollar. A stronger euro could affect inflation in the euro zone — which the ECB has tried to support in the last few years — potentially prompting a change in its policy.
