Not least due to the relatively short period of existence of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), the transparency of the European Central Bank (ECB) in the SSM has not attracted significant attention from legal scholarship. This contribution seeks to close this gap to some extent by mapping...

This legal contribution reflects on the changing role of central banks in the global economy by observing three interconnected developments: globalization, regionalization and the global financial crisis. The hypothesis at the outset is that these developments which are to a considerable extent...

Since its establishment in 1998, the European Central Bank (ECB) has come of age. During this period, its legal framework has been put to the test sufficiently to allow for a proper assessment of the working of this system in practice. This article focuses on the relationship between the ECB and...

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...

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...

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...

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...