A European Central Bank (1992)

During 1990 the Committee of Governors of the Central Banks of the Member States of the European Economic Community, henceforth called the Central Bank Governors Committee, prepared a draft Statute for the proposed European System of Central Banks (ESCB) to be put before the Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) on Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), commencing in December 1990. In fact this draft was completed on 27 November, and presented to the Community Finance Ministers meeting in Italy on Sunday, 2 December 1990. The draft Statute then became generally publicly available during December. Most of section 1, and much of the rest of this chapter, represents a commentary on this Statute. Note that the Governors refer to this document, divided up into 41 Articles, as a Statute (singular), whereas more common English usage might be to refer to the document as presenting draft Statutes (plural). By the time this book is published, the IGC may well have decided to amend and revise the Statute. Other developments, economic and political, may have altered views on how the proposed ESCB might function. The current speed of change in Europe is such that any commentary rapidly becomes dated, but that cannot be helped.1