Mr. Gabriel Makhlouf:

It is a fascinating issue and a very big question. The Chairman asked me if I was worried. I am not worried about changes in supply chains as a concept. I would be interested in understanding what those changes were before I could comment on whether they are positive. What I put in my paper yesterday is that there is a change in sentiment, certainly in recent years, compared to the previous 20 years, when the question of where manufacturing or production took place was driven quite a bit by cost considerations. In recent years, partly because of economic nationalism, as the Chairman described, but also because some countries have started to think through their security needs, countries have started to reconsider their supply chains. The pandemic has changed that dynamic in another way. The Chairman mentioned medical supplies. The world is probably in a bit of a state of flux, which complicates the work of a monetary policymaker as we try to understand how our economy is adjusting not just to these questions of strategy, and within the EU, we talk about open strategic autonomy, but also about the developments in technology, digitalisation, 3-D printing and changes in consumer preferences and wants. All these things will play out over the coming years and will have an effect on economies and the way they work and interact. What the Central Bank and the ECB need to do is make sure we keep up to speed with those sorts of developments so that we are ready to respond to what are fundamental changes but I would not say today that we are concerned about reshoring. It is more a reflection that if that sort of structural change starts to happen, it will have effects on the way economies work and we want to make sure we understand that in case it has particular effects we need to take account of in our monetary policymaking.

The Chairman did not mention the question of climate change.