Interview: Rene Smits

In your inaugural address at the University of Amsterdam1 you examined the constitutional position of the European Central Bank and whether it is the central bank of a federation, or an international financial institution like the International Monetary Fund. What is the answer, and why does it matter?

Well, my conclusion is that the ECB is indeed the central bank of a federation, and there are several reasons why that matters. First, from a legal point of view, a federation is ruled by a

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