Those sceptical that the European Central Bank (ECB) should its green monetary policy claim this is not compatible with the ECB’s mandate, and that this would be undemocratic. But fighting climate change is part of the ECB’s mandate, and democratically elected politicians can legitimise a greener approach.

A new report by Positive Money Europe proposes to accelerate building renovations in the EU by tweaking the European Central Bank’s gigantic “TLTROs” programme to incentivize banks to offer cheap loans for building renovations.

By clarifying that “the ECB will neither run out of liquidity nor fail”, Christine Lagarde has put an end to the irrational logic according to which central banks could go bankrupt.

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 crisis, a debate has emerged on whether we should write off public debts owed to central banks. Despite its technical feasibility, debt cancellation is not the first-best proposal to fight for.

On Monday 2 December 2019, a group of NGOs including Positive Money Europe met with the new President of the European to hand over a letter calling on the ECB to accelerate its efforts in the fight against climate change.