5.4.1.2 Central bank independence

Article 130 TFEU forms the legal basis for central bank independence. This entails that neither national central banks nor the ECB, will seek or take instructions from Union institutions, bodies, offices or agencies, from any government of a Member State, or from any other body. This does not only apply in the conduct of monetary policy, but also in relation to the provision of ELA.

Such independence also implies that national central banks are required to have sufficient financial resources not only to perform their ESCB-related tasks but also their national tasks, including the provision of ELA. Losses incurred by a national central bank in the exercise of its national tasks could negatively impact on the exercise of ESCB-related tasks. For all these reasons, financial independence under the EU Treaties implies that a national central bank should always be sufficiently capitalised. Therefore, the event of a national central bank’s net equity becoming less than its statutory capital or even negative would require that the respective Member State provides the national central bank with an appropriate amount of capital at least up to the level of the statutory capital within a reasonable period of time so as to comply with the principle of financial independence.2