Article - Government bond buying by the European Central Bank : leadership versus accountability

The ECB’s government bond-buying programmes have redistributive effects that potentially constituted economic policy-making, over which the Member States retain competence. Even when ostensibly pursued in the name of price stability, the political ramifications of monetary policy became clearer and fuelled political and legal backlash against central banks in general and the ECB in particular. While the ECB took pains to restrain its policies a decade ago, it has gradually allowed itself increasing discretion with little pushback from its political principals. The minimal accountability scheme should be updated to account for the ECB’s growing role.