Depoliticising monetary tightening: how the European Central Bank managed the 2021–2023 inflation shock

The 2021-2023 inflation shock fuelled a heated public debate about the role of the monetary tightening strategy as the key strategy to the return to price stability. Central banks' rate hikes were not only seen as an overly blunt mechanism to deal with an inflationary surge caused by a series of negative supply shocks over which monetary policy had no control. They were also criticised for depressing labour markets and weakening workers' bargaining power to demand higher wages, even though rising profits were playing a greater role in entrenching inflation than rising wages. How did central bankers respond to these accusations? Drawing on a qualitative content analysis of 128 speeches given by ECB Executive Board members from 2021 to 2024, we demonstrate how ECB Executives relied on a New-Keynesian Phillips curve model of inflation as a discursive depoliticisation device with two components: (1) necessitation, which presented monetary tightening as the only viable strategy to preserve the credibility of the ECB in anchoring inflation expectations and restore demand-supply imbalances; (2) diffusion, which served to mask the anti-labour bias in their monetary policy. Our article raises critical questions about the ECB's self-representation as a neutral player in the management of inflation.