The European System of Central Banks (ESCB) is an institution that comprises the European Central Bank (ECB) and the national central banks (NCBs) of all 27 member states of the European Union (EU). [1] Its objective is to ensure price stability throughout the EU, and improve monetary and financial cooperation between eurozone and non-eurozone member states of the EU. [2]
The process of decision-making in the Eurosystem is centralized through the decision-making bodies of the ECB, namely the Governing Council and the Executive Board. As long as there are EU member states which have not adopted the euro, a third decision-making body, the General Council, shall also exist. The NCBs of the member states that do not participate in the eurozone are members of the ESCB with a special status –while they are allowed to conduct their respective national monetary policies, they do not take part in the decision-making with regard to the single monetary policy for the eurozone and the implementation of such decisions.
The Governing Council comprises all the members of the executive board and the governors of the NCBs of the member states without a derogation, that is, those countries which have adopted the euro. The main responsibilities of the Governing Council are:
The executive board comprises the President, the Vice-President and four other members, all chosen from among persons of recognized standing and professional experience in monetary or banking matters. They are appointed by common accord of the governments of the member states at the level of the Heads of State or Government, on a recommendation from the Council of Ministers after it has consulted the European Parliament and the Governing Council of the ECB (i.e., the Council of the European Monetary Institute (EMI) for the first appointments). The main responsibilities of the executive board are:
The General Council comprises the President and the Vice-President and the governors of the NCBs of all 27 member states. The General Council performs the tasks which the ECB took over from the EMI and which, owing to the derogation of one or more member states, still have to be performed in Stage Three of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The General Council also contributes to:
The Statute of the ESCB makes provision for the following measures to ensure security of tenure for NCB governors and members of the Executive Board:
The ESCB is composed of the European Central Bank and the national central banks of all 27 member states of the EU. The first section of the following list lists member states and their central banks that form the Eurosystem (plus the ECB), which set eurozone monetary policy. The second section lists member states and their central banks that maintain separate currencies.
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The European Central Bank (ECB) is the central component of the Eurosystem and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) as well as one of seven institutions of the European Union. It is one of the world's most important central banks with a balance sheet total of around 7 trillion.
De Nederlandsche Bank is the Dutch member of the Eurosystem and has been the monetary authority for the Netherlands from 1814 to 1998, issuing the Dutch guilder. Since 2014, it has also been the country's national competent authority within European Banking Supervision. It was originally founded by King William I, and has been since transformed into a state-owned public limited company.
The euro area, commonly called the eurozone (EZ), is a currency union of 20 member states of the European Union (EU) that have adopted the euro (€) as their primary currency and sole legal tender, and have thus fully implemented EMU policies.
The Deutsche Bundesbank is the German member of the Eurosystem and has been the monetary authority for Germany from 1957 to 1998, issuing the Deutsche Mark (DM). It succeeded the Bank deutscher Länder, which had introduced the DM on 20 June 1948.
The president of the European Central Bank is the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), the main institution responsible for the management of the euro and monetary policy in the Eurozone of the European Union (EU)
Lithuania, as an EU member state, joined the eurozone by adopting the euro on 1 January 2015. This made it the last of the three Baltic states to adopt the euro, after Estonia (2011) and Latvia (2014). Before then, its currency, the litas, was pegged to the euro at 3.4528 litas to 1 euro.
The Eurosystem is the monetary authority of the eurozone, the collective of European Union member states that have adopted the euro as their sole official currency. The European Central Bank (ECB) has, under Article 16 of its Statute, the exclusive right to authorise the issuance of euro banknotes. Member states can issue euro coins, but the amount must be authorised by the ECB beforehand.
The Executive Board of the European Central Bank is the organ responsible for implementing monetary policy for the Eurozone in line with the guidelines and decisions taken by the Governing Council of the European Central Bank.
Denmark uses the krone as its currency and does not use the euro, having negotiated the right to opt out from participation under the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. In 2000, the government held a referendum on introducing the euro, which was defeated with 53.2% voting no and 46.8% voting yes. The Danish krone is part of the ERM II mechanism, so its exchange rate is tied to within 2.25% of the euro.
José M. González-Páramo is a Spanish economist who served as a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank from 2004 to 2012.
The economic and monetary union (EMU) of the European Union is a group of policies aimed at converging the economies of member states of the European Union at three stages.
Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) is a program of the European Central Bank under which the bank makes purchases in secondary, sovereign bond markets, under certain conditions, of bonds issued by Eurozone member-states. The program was presented by its supporters as a principal manifestation of Mario Draghi's commitment to do "whatever it takes" to preserve the euro.
European Banking Supervision, also known as the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), is the policy framework for the prudential supervision of banks in the euro area. It is centered on the European Central Bank (ECB), whose supervisory arm is referred to as ECB Banking Supervision. EU member states outside of the euro area can also participate on a voluntary basis, as was the case of Bulgaria as of late 2023. European Banking Supervision was established by Regulation 1024/2013 of the Council, also known as the SSM Regulation, which also created its central decision-making body, the ECB Supervisory Board.
The European banking union refers to the transfer of responsibility for banking policy from the member state-level to the union-wide level in several EU member states, initiated in 2012 as a response to the 2009 Eurozone crisis. The motivation for the banking union was the fragility of numerous banks in the Eurozone, and the identification of a vicious circle between credit conditions for these banks and the sovereign credit of their respective home countries. In several countries, private debts arising from a property bubble were transferred to the respective sovereign as a result of banking system bailouts and government responses to slowing economies post-bubble. Conversely, weakness in sovereign credit resulted in deterioration of the balance sheet position of the banking sector, not least because of high domestic sovereign exposures of the banks.
AnaCredit is a dataset of the European Central Bank, containing detailed information on individual bank loans in the euro area, harmonised across all member states. “AnaCredit” stands for analytical credit datasets.
Gauweiler and Others v Deutscher Bundestag (2015) C-62/14 is an EU law case relevant for banking law which approved outright monetary transactions that were needed to save the Eurozone from financial turmoil.
Fabio Panetta is an Italian economist who has been serving as Governor of the Bank of Italy since 2023. He previously served as a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank from 2020 until 2023. Prior to his ECB appointment, Panetta served as Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy and concurrently as President of the Institute for the Supervision of Insurance from May to December 2019.
The Intervention of ECB in the Eurozone Crisis were the interventions made between 2009 and 2010 by the European Central Bank (ECB) during the European debt crisis. In 2009–2010, due to substantial public and private sector debt, and "the intimate sovereign-bank linkages" the eurozone crisis impacted the periphery countries in Europe. This resulted in significant financial sector instability in Europe; banks' solvency risks grew, which had direct implications for their funding liquidity.
The Digital Euro is the project of the European Central Bank (ECB), decided in July 2021, for the possible introduction of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The aim is to develop a fast and secure electronic payment instrument that would complement the Euro for individuals and businesses in its existing form as cash and in bank accounts, and would be issued by the European System of Central Banks of the Eurozone.
