A top European Central Bank official has drawn sharp criticism in her native Germany for doing the unthinkable: praising inflation.

The attacks on Sabine Lautenschläger, a German who sits on the ECB’s six-member executive board, underscore an election-year debate in Germany over years of easy-money policies. Germans accuse the ECB of inflating asset prices, subsidizing profligate southern European governments and impoverishing Germany’s conservative savers.

The attacks also underscore a disconnect between widespread negative views among Germans of ECB policies and a perception overseas that those policies largely benefit Germany.

Ms. Lautenschläger, a former vice president of Germany’s central bank, told a domestic radio station over the weekend she was “delighted” that inflation in the 19-country eurozone rebounded to 1.8% in January. The ECB aims to keep inflation just below 2%, a target it has missed since early 2013.

“Frankly, I am delighted about that: we are close to our objective,” said Ms. Lautenschläger.

Her language riled some in her native country, where an aversion to inflation is instilled from childhood.

“Easy to say if your wallet is full!” Germany’s mass-market Bild newspaper said on its front page Tuesday, alongside a photo of Ms. Lautenschläger. The newspaper also published comments from social and political groups criticizing her enthusiasm.

“The rise in inflation should be seen rather critically for people with low incomes,” Ulrike Mascher, president of the Berlin-based social lobbying group VdK, told Bild. “Pensioners, disabled people, single parents or low-wage workers are disproportionately burdened by higher inflation compared with other groups.”

Wolfgang Kubicki, the deputy chairman of Germany’s free-market FDP party, warned that “consumers naturally have a big problem as a result of high inflation.” Pensioners in particular would be hard hit, he said.

With federal elections scheduled for September, German politicians have been quick to criticize the ECB’s loose-money policies and call for a swift end to its massive bond-purchase program, known as quantitative easing. Germany’s central bank, long a critic of QE, said on Monday that German house prices might be overvalued by as much as 30%, for which it partly blamed low interest rates.

Elsewhere, Germany is widely seen as a prime beneficiary of the ECB’s policies. While countries across southern Europe stagnate economically, Germany’s unemployment rate is at its lowest level in decades and the nation’s trade surpluses are at record highs.

That has prompted a backlash from Donald Trump’s U.S. administration. Peter Navarro, head of the U.S.’s National Trade Council, recently told the Financial Times newspaper that Germany was using a “grossly undervalued” euro to “exploit” its trading partners.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble hit back, acknowledging that the euro was too weak for Germany, but laying the blame squarely with the ECB.

The debate comes as Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a strong challenge from both sides of the political spectrum. On the left, the Social Democrats appear to be resurging under their new leader Martin Schulz. On the right, the anti-euro Alternative for Germany party has gained support after criticizing the ECB’s policies for hurting Germans.

Meanwhile, Germany’s trade surpluses are likely to loom large in Baden-Baden in March, when Group of 20 finance ministers will gather there to discuss the global economy.

Source: Dow Jones