The Institutional Architecture and Tasks of the European Central Bank since the Crisis - An Overview

Phoebus L. Athanassiou
November 2018  

This paper presents an overview of the impact of the financial and sovereign debt crises on the ECB and the Eurosystem, with an emphasis on some of the main changes they have ushered in for the ECB and the euro area national central banks. The paper is divided in three parts. Part 1 presents an account of the impact of the crisis on the ECB’s monetary policy, and an outline of the EU law constraints to the ECB’s discretionary monetary policy powers at times of crisis. Part 2 examines the ECB’s contribution to the preservation of financial stability, the interaction between the latter and the ECB’s monetary policy mandate, and their interplay with the principle of central bank independence. Finally, Part 3 explores the ECB’s role in the Troika, and its newly attributed competences in the context of bank recovery and resolution. [...]

Keywords: ECB, crisis, monetary policy, financial stability, central bank independence, bank recovery and resolution.

Phoebus L. Athanassiou is Principal Legal Counsel of the European Central Bank (ECB). 
The views expressed in this paper are purely personal, and they are not intended to bind the ECB or the Eurosystem.

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