Trichet defends decision to keep minutes secret

All of the other G7 central banks bar Canada publish minutes. The Federal Reserve even publishes full transcripts, though these do not enter the public domain until years after the meetings.

The ECB's relative secrecy has sparked calls from the likes of Nicolas Sarkozy, France's president, to follow other central banks' lead in publishing detailed notes on the Governing Council's meetings.

However, Trichet said on Tuesday that such a move "could jeopardise the credibility of our decisions and undermine the area-wide perspective that we unanimously internalise in our meetings."

"The decision of the Governing Council not to publish voting records has been made to stress the collegial nature of the ECB's decision-making process and the specific institutional circumstances under which the ECB operates as a supranational institution," Trichet said. "Publishing information on the individual voting behaviour would entail the risk that the votes of Governing Council members - and in particular the governors of national central banks - might be interpreted from a national perspective, irrespective of their genuine underlying rationale."

Trichet said that the ECB's introductory statements, released 45 minutes after each decision, fulfilled the same function as other central banks' minutes, with the added benefit of timeliness. That the ECB held a question-and-answer session with journalists after each meeting in addition to the opening statement made its communication policy even more superior. The extent of the session, which often lasts for an hour or more, was "a lucid reflection of the need and demand for an open and frank exchange of views between policymakers on the one side and representatives of the media on the other."

Trichet noted that the importance of the statement and question and answer session could be seen by its effect on financial markets. Highlighting the impact of the press conference in clarifying market expectations, Trichet said. "A recent ECB study shows that there has been not only a general reduction in market reactions on Governing Council meeting days over time, but that the small remaining reactions relate much less to the surprise component for any given decision and much more to the surrounding communication and its implications for the future path of interest rates."

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