Droit et Économie - L'avenir de l'Union économique et monétaire : une perspective franco-allemande - 115

A LEGAL AND POLITICAL ECONOMY MAPPING 115

report the 'total and irreversible convertibility of currencies, the elimination
of margins of fluctuation in exchange rates, the irrevocable fixing of parity
rates and the complete liberalization of movements of capital' formed the
core of such a monetary union. In the same vain, the 1989 Delors Report
on economic and monetary union in the European Community considered
EMU 'in many respects a natural consequence of the commitment to create
a market without frontiers [...] which could secure a significant increase in
economic welfare in the Community.'16 Lower transaction costs, the removal
of exchange rate risks, and greater price transparency were among the main
economic arguments put forward in favour of a currency union in the internal market.17 The consequences for the relationship between economics, on
the one side, and law and politics on the other, of that such a transfer of
competences to the supranational level only become apparent when considered the choice of institutional arrangements at the European level introduced by the Maastricht Treaty.
In vesting the power to conduct monetary policy for the single currency
area in a supranational central bank a deliberate choice has been made to
(attempt to) depoliticise monetary policy. Articles 130 and 282(3) TFEU, as
well as the corresponding Article 7 of the Statute of the ESCB and of the
ECB, secure the independence of the ECB and the central banks of the
euro area Member States participating in the European System of Central
Banks (ESCB), in exercising the powers and carrying out the tasks and
duties conferred by primary Union law. Moreover, this new supranational
monetary policy authority has been vested with a single, and all other policy
considerations overriding objective, namely price stability.18 The institutional design of the ECB has been heavily influenced by theoretical and
empirical evidence for a positive correlation between the central bank independence and inflation (variability), as well as arguments about the longterm neutrality of monetary policy in relation to other economic variables,
namely growth and employment.19 Considering this monetarist view of the
need for an independent and conservative central bank,20 it is little surprising that the ECB is only permitted 'to support the general economic
16. Brackets added. Committee for the Study of Economic and Monetary Union, Report on the
Economic and Monetary Union in the European Communities (EU Commission, 1989).
17. Generally, on the economic costs and benefits of EMU EIJFFINGER S.C.W. and DE HAAN J., European Monetary and Fiscal Policy (OUP, 2000), 17-26, with further references. Critical: FELDSTEIN
(op. cit. supra, note 10).
18. Art. 127(1) TFEU; Art. 2 Statute ESCB and ECB.
19. BERNANKE B.S. and MISHKIN F.S., "Inflation Targeting: A New Framework for Monetary Policy?",
Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 11, No. 2, Spring 1997, 97-116, 103 et s., with further references.
20. For more details see DE HAAN J. and EIJFFINGER S.C.W., "The politics of central bank independence", DNB Working Paper No. 539, December 2016, 2 et s.

Droit et Économie - L'avenir de l'Union économique et monétaire : une perspective franco-allemande

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