ECB Governors Close to Loosing Their Voting Rights

On January 1, this year, Malta and Cyprus joined the euro area. Now there are 15 countries that use the single European currency, the euro. When one more country joins this group of countries, the new voting rules for the ECB’s Governing Council will apply, unless it is decided to postpone the introduction of the so called rotation system until the euro area comprises more than 18 member countries.

 

Under the rotation system the number of Governors with a vote will be fixed at 15. So, at any give time some Governors will be participating in the meetings of the Governing Council without a vote.

 

In a previous log I addressed this issue and referred to a paper by Ansgar Belke (University of Hohenheim) and Barbara Styczynska (University of Fribourg).

 

The rotation system was also the subject of a paper authored by a member of the ESCB’s inner circle, i.e. Dominique Servais who is Head of the European Central Bank Coordination Unit at the Nationale Bank van België/Banque Nationale de Belgique.

 

“The Future Voting Modalities of the ECB Governing Council” in the proceedings of the workshops “The European Integration Process: A Changing Environment for National Central Banks” organized by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (2005)