Interview with Frank Elderson, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB and Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB, conducted by Jonathan Witteman on 29 January 2024

3 February 2024

In its introduction to the interview, the newspaper refers to and quotes from speeches of September 2023 and November 2023 as well as from the interview itself, ending with references to the sanctions that the ECB can impose and the fit and proper requirements for bankers. 

Coming from a supervisor charged with assessing bankers, those words sound quite threatening. What happens if the ECB finds a banker inadequate on climate?

We obviously have the advantage of being able to inspect the inner workings of all banks. And we see that a lot is going well at banks in the area of climate risks, even if no single bank has currently met all of our expectations. But I don’t see any bank completely ignoring climate risks either. Should this happen in the future, a moment would come where we would have to…