Legal Aspects of the European Central Bank (ECB) - The ECB within the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and the European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS) - Second (Extended and Updated) Edition

Abstract

The present study is structured in two Chapters – the first containing three Sections and the second two – as follows:

(a) Chapter One focuses on the European Central Bank (ECB) within the European System of Central Banks (ESCB):

• the first two Sections (A and B) briefly discuss the definition and the sources of the law of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), as well as the structure and operation of the ESCB, and • Section C presents then the general and the temporary (unconventional) framework governing the ECB’s single monetary policy within the Eurosystem (a sub-system of the ESCB, under 1-3). It also discusses the role of the ECB in the provision of emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) to solvent credit institutions in the euro area on the basis of the recent (2017) related ECB Agreement (under 4).

(b) In Chapter Two the focus turns to the ECB within the European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS):

• Section D discusses recent and ongoing developments in European banking law, identifying in particular the specific tasks conferred upon the ECB firstly with regard to the macro-prudential oversight of the EU financial system (under 1.2) and then for the micro-prudential supervision of credit institutions established (mainly but not confined to) in the euro area within the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) (under 3.1), while • the SSM is presented in more details in Section E.

Keywords: EMU, ESCB, ECB, monetary policy, asset purchase programmes (APPs), emergency liquidity assistance (ELA), ESFS, micro-prudential supervision, macro-prudential oversight, significant and less significant credit institutions

JEL Classification: E42, E43, E44, E51, E52, E58, F33, F36, F55, G21, G23, G28, K10, K23, K33, N14, N24