CNB Board decisions

The Bank Board meets to discuss monetary issues eight times a year and, in exceptional cases, it may also take decisions on monetary issues at extraordinary meetings. Until the end of 2007, the Bank Board met to discuss monetary issues once a month. The monetary policy meeting is followed by a press conference. At the press conference, the CNB releases a brief digest of the information which the Bank Board based its discussion on, a list of the risks pertaining to the current forecast according to the Bank Board members, and the Bank Board’s decisions regarding the interest rate settings, including the ratio of the votes cast. The presentation given at the press conference is made available immediately after the press conference, usually at around 3 p.m. Since May 2007 audio recordings and since December 2009 also videos from the press conferences have been made available on the CNB website about one hour after the press conference. The minutes of the meeting, reflecting the Bank Board members’ discussion, are usually published 8 days later. Until April 2005, they were published 12 days later. Detailed transcripts of the monetary Bank Board meetings and the inputs for the Bank Board’s decisions on monetary issues (the Situation Report on Economic and Monetary Developments and the Monetary Policy Recommendation) are published six years later (available in Czech version only).

The Monetary Policy Recommendations were part of the Situation Reports until May 2001. At its meeting on 31 May 2001, the CNB Bank Board decided not to include them in the Situation Reports any more. Since this date the Monetary Policy Recommendations have been prepared as a separate document. From June 2001 to March 2004, the Monetary Policy Recommendations contained the risk assessment and recommendation formulated by the Monetary Policy Division (i.e. only one of the several divisions within the Monetary and Statistics Department). This recommendation was discussed further in the Monetary and Statistics Department and therefore could differ from the final recommendation of the Monetary and Statistics Department submitted to the Bank Board during the discussion of the Situation Report. Since April 2004, the Monetary Policy Recommendation has contained the risk assessment and final recommendation of the Monetary and Statistics Department.