Frankenstein in Europe

Since its creation in 1999, the European Central Bank has been trying to have an influence on the rules for the economic governance of the eurozone, even though its official responsibilities are strictly restricted to monetary issues. The 2009 sovereign debt crisis opened a window of opportunity for the ECB to exert an unprecedented influence on these issues. The main aim of this article is thus to analyze how the ECB managed to extend its influence beyond its official monetary responsibilities during the crisis. After establishing that the ECB is a political player, I explore the three channels through which it had an impact on the eurozone’s economic governance: its monopoly on liquidity, recognition of its expertise on financial issues, and its moral authority over member states. The main research findings of this study are that political representatives unexpectedly had a lack of political control over the ECB during the crisis and that policymakers’ misperceptions occupied a central role in allowing the ECB to play the part that it did during the process of solving the crisis.