La política monetària del Banc Central Europeu

Resumen

What is now at stake in Europe is something really important: the realignment of the monetary power, the power to create money, one of the most important powers in any society. The monetary power in Europe has undergone two main changes in the J 990s as a consequence of the Maastricht Treaty. The first change was the depolitization of the monetary power, which was achieved by granting independence to the national central banks of European Union. The second big step was the supranationalization of monetary power through the establishment of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). As a consequence, the monetary power is nowadays a supranational power, which goes beyond national borders. The Maastricht Treaty clearly states in its article 105. A that "the primary objective of the ESCB is to maintain price stability". This sentence is the legal basis for the so-called stability culture. Stability is a concept, which needs to be operational. For this reason, one of the tasks undertaken by the European Central Bank in the Autumn of 1998 was to establish a precise definition of stability: "A year-on-year increase in the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices below 2% for the euro area in the medium term". This article develops the main aspects concerning this definition of stability.