Several commentators have recently pointed to the challenging economic position of some eurozone countries as a factor that should – or will – influence the European Central Bank’s monetary policy decisions in the near future, irrespective of the risks to price stability in the eurozone as a whole. I strongly dispute this view, for two reasons. The ECB’s monetary policy will always take a eurozone perspective. This perspective must not only fit all; it also benefits all.

My first reason for rejecting the commentators’ view is that in a monetary union, when setting interest rates, the central bank cannot do any better than take an area-wide perspective. This applies to any central bank. Consider the Federal Reserve: it cannot tailor its interest rate to the specific economic conditions in, say, Texas or California. Likewise in Europe, any attempt to favour national over eurozone developments would jeopardise the remarkable success of the single monetary policy: price stability in 17 countries and for 331m people. This achievement is impressive when compared with the struggle to control inflation in many would-be eurozone countries before economic and monetary union.

Contrary to what is often claimed, the dispersion in economic activity and inflation across the eurozone has recently not increased significantly compared with the average during the period before the financial crisis. In a monetary union – not unlike within nation states – some degree of heterogeneity is normal.