5 - ECB Monetary Policy during the Financial Crisis

Summary

The series of crises started with the global financial crisis that gained speed with the collapse of Lehman Brother in Autumn 2008. The ECB as any other major central bank became deeply involved in solving the crisis, which had eroded banks’ ability to trust each other. The ECB provided increasing amounts of liquidity to banks, and in many ways replaced interbank markets with its own operational framework. Other exceptional measures included easing and expanding of accepted collateral, purchases of high-quality covered bonds issued by banks. The constitutional analysis culminated on the question, whether the ECB measures can be classified as monetary policy. Generally, the provision of liquidity, even in some unusual forms, and its rationales were even classical monetary policy and similar to other central banks. The main objective was stability and sufficient liquidity in the euro area financial markets. The ECB did not give financial assistance to a Member State or their banks, and its independence was maintained. Only the later three-year LTROs could be assessed somewhat differently.