Interview with Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, conducted by Olaf Storbeck on 7 May 2026

11 May 2026

You’ve been in the eye of the storm as ECB Vice-President for the past eight years. Your term is expiring amid the second energy price shock in four years. Is history repeating itself?

The situation we had in 2021 and 2022 is very different from the one we have now. Back then, the surge in inflation was the consequence of a series of shocks: the pandemic, the bottlenecks linked to the reopening of the economy, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At that time, fiscal and monetary policy were extremely expansionary. But today, interest rates are positive, we are in quantitative tightening mode, and we have reduced our balance sheet. And fiscal policy is in a totally different situation. We do have an energy shock now. But I don’t think the comparison with 2021-22 is the correct one.

When you say that the situation is different, do you mean that the inflation risk is…