The European Central Bank is at all times both fulfilling its legal mandate and ignoring it. Until you look closely it is impossible to tell which it is, and once you have decided which it is it can only be because you have lost sight of its mandate as set down in law. This explains a lot: Even I can’t decide whether Mario Draghi relentlessly adheres to or has completely abandoned the whole ECB mandate.
One of the reasons that Europe is collapsing and the whole world is heading for a recession within a depression is that the ECB is charged solely with maintaining price stability not supporting economic growth. Their duty, they argue, is to without prejudice support a European wide inflation rate below, but close to 2%. However, the mandate as set out in law is so convoluted as to leave the ECB council capable of simultaneously adhering and violating both the letter and spirit of the law. No wonder Europe is a mess.
They are not just charged with maintaining price stability, as interpreted, they are also empowered to…
Without prejudice to the objective of price stability, it shall support the general economic policies in the Union with a view to contributing to the achievement of the objectives of the Union as laid down in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union. [my emphasis throughout]
This implies that although the ECB cannot ignore inflation, it has leeway to support the policies of member states and the Union as a whole. By this criteria the ECB should have done everything in its power to keep inflation and inflation expectations running at really, really, really close to 2%. Instead they have crashed. The mandate is wider than price stability and includes supporting economic policy making rather than sabotaging it.
However, the mandate continues…
The ESCB shall act in accordance with the principle of an open market economy with free competition, favouring an efficient allocation of resources, and in compliance with the principles set out in Article 119 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
This part of the mandate implies that the ECB is empowered to not support the policies of member states if they are not compliant with “free competition, favouring an efficient allocation of resources.” That would certainly have empowered Trichet, and now Draghi, to withhold such support as is possible if they consider member states’ policy “insufficiently favourable to an efficient allocation of resources.”
At the moment it appears Draghi is refusing to cut interest rates below 1% to blackmail Greece and France into policies deemed favourable to “Article 119 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.” This seems like something that should be impermissible for a central bank but it is in fact within the Feds mandate. So refusing adequate policy until member states change policy is merely the ECB laying greater weight on supporting certain policies over others, as it is mandated.
The mandate references Article 119 which says…
1. For the purposes set out in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union, the activities of the Member States and the Union shall include, as provided in the Treaties, the adoption of an economic policy which is based on the close coordination of Member States’ economic policies, on the internal market and on the definition of common objectives, and conducted in accordance with the principle of an open market economy with free competition.
2. Concurrently with the foregoing, and as provided in the Treaties and in accordance with the procedures set out therein, these activities shall include a single currency, the euro, and the definition and conduct of a single monetary policy and exchange-rate policy the primary objective of both of which shall be to maintain price stability and, without prejudice to this objective, to support the general economic policies in the Union, in accordance with the principle of an open market economy with free competition.
3. These activities of the Member States and the Union shall entail compliance with the following guiding principles: stable prices, sound public finances and monetary conditions and a sustainable balance of payments.
The ECB has overseen a colossal balance of payments crisis, with the Eurozone periphery persistently running deficits and the core running surpluses. In 1992, at the signing of the Maastricht treaty, they saw this problem coming and specifically empowered the institutions of Europe to deal with it, and they have failed. This imbalance, rather than government profligacy is at the core of the Eurozone crisis. Certainly under Trichet, and now under Draghi, this part of the ECB’s mandate has been completely ignored.
A mandate is fulfilled or unfulfilled, but it is impossible to tell if the ECB has, is or will fulfil its mandate in its entirety. The ECB has failed or succeeded, and is on target to achieve or betray its objectives, it has achieved its aims “impeccably” or it is insane.
To be honest, I’m too tired to work out which it is, all I know is that all this makes me very pessimistic.
Filed under: Economics, Foreign Affairs, Draghi, ECB, France, Greece, Inflation, Mandate, Schroedinger's Cat, Trichet
I’m just wondering how on earth the ECB could have fulfilled the mandate to create a sustainable balance of payments, given Germany’s determination to beggar its neighbours in pursuit of export-led growth. Seems like a major conflict of interest to me.