There are 25 people who sit on the European Central Bank's governing council.The big players, like ECB President Mario Draghi and Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann, are well-known. But there are dozens of other council members whose views have a huge impact on the central bank's decisions.We've judged each member's importance on a scale of 1-5 (based on things such as the size of the country they represent and whether they sit onthe executive board)and presented them in order from the most hawkish to the most dovish. ITC Markets and Credit Suisseproduced similar rankings in the past.Doves are typically members whooften want more monetary easingfrom the central bank. They're usually the first in favour of interest rate cuts and more positive about the beneficial potential of quantitative easing (QE), which means buying up government bonds to try and boost the economy.Hawks are the opposite. They're more sceptical of QE and typically favour higher interest rates and often express concerns about financial instability caused by easy money. These are the policymakers who typically focus on supply-side remedies to make economies more competitive, and are more critical of the impact of loose monetary policy.HAWK: Jens Weidmann ' BundesbankImportance: 5/5This will hardly surprise anyone who watches the ECB. Weidmann is Europe's most hawkish prominent monetary policy maker.Here are some of his recent comments:On the ECB's QE: "I regard this decision with scepticism"On QE again:I thought that there was no urgent need for this measure - not least because government bond purchases are not a monetary policy instrument like our policy rates, for instance.Central banks are not magicians. And they have no wand to make all our wishes come true. In particular, it is fanciful to believe that monetary policy tools can sustainably lift the growth potential of an economy or permanently create new jobs. These goals can only be achieved through structural reforms.As the representative of Europe's largest economy, Weidmann has an over-sized impact, and he's among the most influential members of the governing council.HAWK: Yves Mersch ' ECB Executive BoardImportance: 4/5In 2013, Mersch expressed "considerable uncertainty" over negative deposit rates (which were eventually brought in) and added that "a low-interest-rate environment may in principle spur an underpricing of certain risks, support the emergence of asset price bubbles, or provide incentives to delay certain adjustments in bank balance sheets with the risk of zombie-banking."He was very negative about QE back in 2013, and hadn't much changed his views by the end of 2014. According to CNBC, in November here's what he said:"Easing of monetary policy cannot work effectively when the European economy is structurally not in good shape," Mersch said in a speech at an annual banking conference in Frankfurt."I would feel a lot better if those politically responsible clearly committed to lowering the risk for the ECB," he said, referring to commitments for lower sovereign debt, closer fiscal and economic integration and structural reforms.Even though he's on the executive board, Mersch is quite a forthright hawk.HAWK: Klaas Knot ' Netherlands BankImportance: 4/5Klaas Knot is a monetary economist, he's worked at the IMF and the Dutch finance ministry, and he's definitely on the very hawkish end of the ECB spectrum.Knot said he would only support QE if national central banks took their own risk, which is seen by some economists as something that weakens the scheme.He said there wasn't much more the ECB could do (in 2011!) and raised fears that loose monetary policy would create financial bubblesas recently as October.He's not as vocal or powerful as Weidmann, but no doubt: He's a solid hawk.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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