My understanding of the status of a central bank is that it is allowed to act with whatever tools are at it´s disposal, as it is backed by a consenting tax payer base. The Tax paying base is on the hook if it should go wrong - which it invariably does - see the UKs exit from the ERM...That the tax paying base is not specifically asked to endorse the Authority of a central bank lays in the fact that whilst independent, the Bank is to all intents and purposes, an instrument of the government of the day, which indeed HAS been endorsed as the tax paying base has been invited to participate in the forming of the government of the day through the usual democratic mechanism of the general election. This Government, by virtue of being democratically elected, is obliged to execute duty of care to the electorate and it´s interests and welfare. For this, it needs a Central Bank to oversee the prudent use of the currency of said electorate. The ECB is an instrument of the EU, and is bound by the Treaties. None of us have ever been asked to vote for the EU - at most on some document of fine points which did not in themselves change anything that the EU had not already pre-ordained - the French, Dutch and Irish referendum being cases in point. Only the Danish Euro opt out referendum carried any significance. None of us can vote the EU out - it is a government, but a government of technocrats that do not stand on a regular basis for election. The ECB and the court the EU also created - the ECJ, are there to serve the EU and it´s treaties - and nothing else....now we see a British PM, drawing a red line over the length of time before in-work benefits are paid to EU citizens who work, add value to the UK economy and pay taxes to the UK economy....and on this point he is prepared to leave the EU, but not on the point I refer to above.
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