The discussion on the limits of @ecb mon pol (rightly) concludes that EU Treaty change would ultimately be needed.
However, in the short-term, Art. 125(2) TFEU could prove useful, which allows the Council to "specify the prohibitions referred to in Art. 123 TFEU". 1/x
However, in the short-term, Art. 125(2) TFEU could prove useful, which allows the Council to "specify the prohibitions referred to in Art. 123 TFEU". 1/x
The Council has indeed "specified" the meaning of Art. 123 TFEU in Council Regulation (EC) No 3603/93 (in December 1993). But this essentially means that the definition of the monetary financing prohibition rests on a Regulation that is 27 years old: eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/… 2/x
What about updating the Regulation to reflect some developments in the mon pol space over the past 3 decades? For instance, one could exclude certain debt instruments from the prohibition of mon fin (as was f.i. done with the 'ways and means' facility of the @bankofengland) 3/x
The Council would ofc need to consider @EUCourtPress jurisprudence (Gauweiler, Weiss) & well as the textual limits of Art. 123 TFEU. But updating the definitions in Art. 123 could create some wiggle room for the @ecb in what looks like a low-for-long post-pandemic era. 4/x
