03/12/2019 (Agence Europe) – The candidate for the position of member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB), Isabel Schnabel, felt that it was unnecessary to restart the massive asset purchases in November as decided by the monetary institute in September (see EUROPE 12326/1). “I'm not sure it was absolutely necessary to restart the asset purchases at that time”, the German academic told the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on Tuesday 3 December. She went on to say that, “If I had voted, maybe I would have said maybe we wait with the asset purchases”. According to her, the integration of the climate issue is the main issue in the strategic review of monetary policy which is about to be launched by the ECB (see EUROPE 12381/14). The European Parliament is just giving an opinion on Ms Schnabel's application, which has already been approved by the Eurogroup and should be endorsed by the European Council in December. (MB)