Taking a normative approach this paper identifies and develops basic principles for the good governance of central banks, namely independence, democratic accountability and transparency. In doing so the paper focuses on the arrangements surrounding the primary task of a central bank, i.e. the...

Together with institutional, functional and organizational independence, financial independence constitutes one of the cornerstones of central bank independence, the economic ratio of which has been demonstrated extensively in the literature. In broad terms financial independence may be defined...

The operationalisation in late 2014 of European Regulation 1024/2013 conferring specific tasks on the European Central Bank concerning policies relating to the prudential supervision of credit institutions and establishing a Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSMR) has profoundly changed the European...

In the wake of the European financial and sovereign debt crisis there is a revived interest in the constitutional position of the European Central Bank (ECB) in the European Union legal order, notably its independence and democratic legitimacy. A new generation of researchers, witnessing and in...

These are the conclusions to an edited volume compiled to test the feasibility of an active paradigm of the study of EU's engagements with the international legal order. The work aims at analysing how the EU shapes its environment and creates rules and practices for the world, reshaping – or...

This contribution examines fiscal policy co-ordination in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and discusses whether the amendments of the Stability and Growth Pact proposed in the past, some of which have since been implemented, enhance budget discipline. In doing so, it provides a detailed...

This paper starts with a discussion of the various aspects of accountability of central banks. On the basis of this discussion we construct an indicator for accountability for 16 central banks, including the European Central Bank. It is shown that the degree of accountability differs...

Transparency of central banks - defined here as the degree of genuine understanding of the monetary policy process and policy decisions by the public - has become a major issue. The authors use the term disclosure whenever we refer to the activities of a central bank to enhance the public s...

This working paper focuses on the accountability arrangements for the ECB in the framework of the EU's Banking Union. For this purpose, first of all an analytical framework for the purposes of evaluating the preconditions and instruments of accountability placed at the disposal of the European...

Regulation 1024/2013 has established the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) as a milestone towards the establishment of a full-fledged European Banking Union (EBU). This mechanism represents an unprecedented centralization in the area of financial market supervision in the internal market by...