Who Sets the Agenda of the European Central Bank? The Role of National Central Banks in the Eurosystem

It has been well-established that central bank policy agendas are shaped by the spread of ideas, individual governors’ agency and economic and political pressures. However, in the case of the European Central Bank (ECB) the influence of the multi-level set-up of the Eurosystem consisting of both the ECB and National Central Banks (NCBs) is often not considered. How does this peculiar institutional setup shape the agenda? This study argues that NCBs act as intermediaries, channeling national and public priorities to the ECB level. Using a transformer model, alongside sequence and cross-sectional time-series analyses of ECB and NCB speeches from 1997 to 2024, I find that the ECB agenda and issue-responsiveness vis-a-vis `new' topics are driven primarily by NCBs. By revealing how NCBs shape what and when the ECB talks about certain topics, I also contribute more broadly to implications of the multi-level structure of the EU as well as how independent central banks and international organisations respond to outside pressures.