This workshop will offer renewed perspectives on the question of the ECB’s accountability, informed by the exceptional transformations that its mandate, functions and tasks have undergone over the last few years. In doing so, the speakers will  all seek to determine how these transformations impact on our traditional understanding of the ECB’s independence, the accountability arrangements it is subject to, and, more broadly, its position within the EU institutional system. Such endeavour seems particularly timely. Not only have the ECB’s actions on all fronts (monetary, economic and supervisory) been highly contested, both within and outside the EU system, but the existing institutional set-up, and related accountability mechanisms, remain highly adaptable, as the Banking Union is still under construction, and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) could soon be turned into a fully-fledged European Monetary Fund (EMF). Additionally, recent developments, such as the first activation ever of the SRM and the decision by the ECB to bring a case before the Court of justice against Latvia, illustrate again the importance of the question of the ECB’s accountability.

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