And Trichet was perfectly suited to play this dual role. He was a deeply conservative former head of the Banque de France. The ECB’s independence was his highest value and he guarded it jealously. The ECB’s constitution provided plenty of safeguards. Its deliberations were shielded from public scrutiny by minimal transparency requirements. To prevent it from being put to work as a vehicle of fiscal policy, it was banned from monetizing newly issued government debt. Unlike the Fed, which had a dual mandate for price stability and maximum employment, the ECB had price stability as its only
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