Governo della moneta e Costituzione

The thesis is entitled “Monetary policy and the Constitution” and is organized in four areas corresponding to the four chapters the document is divided into. The first introductory chapter aims at providing the definition of monetary policy: the candidate, in particular, while determining the fundamental lines of such definition highlights how monetary flows management, although having an undeniable technical component, is, as a matter of fact, a political activity. At the same time the candidate analyzes some issues that are traditionally disregarded in other juridical studies on the matter, such as the transmission mechanism in monetary policy. The examination of such subject enables to fully understand the importance and the effects of all monetary policy decisions, whose influence on real economy needs a certain amount of time to be acknowledged and which, being potentially affected by many variables, suffer for undeniable uncertainties. At the same time, the candidate analyzes issues connected with central bank independence dedicating a remarkable attention to the institution’s accountability. In almost all judicial systems central banks are entrusted with monetary policy governance; to that end, a comparative examination of different institutions appears quite crucial: in particular, the candidate deepens the architecture of the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan. The second chapter, entitled “Monetary policy in the Constitution”, first of all contains a deep and thoughtful investigation concerning the Constitution’s preparatory minutes and puts a particular accent on those by the De Maria Commission. Such analysis is also accompained by an examination of the work of public law’s experts and of the Constitutional Court’s case law which, during the years dealt with monetary stability and with its position within constitutional values’ hierarchy. Such study concludes that in the original canvas of the Constitution the monetary metre’s defense, although representing a value enjoying a certain protection, was not considered an objective to be absolutely obtained but, on the opposite, appeared as a value to be balanced with others. The third chapter begins with a deep examination of the work of those authors who dealt with Bank of Italy’s independence as it was before the enforcement of all reforms implemented so that Italy could join the European monetary and economical union. The same chapter deepens the new features brought by Maastricht Treaty in the field of currency governance, such as monetary stability becoming the sole and absolute end of Eurozone’s monetary policy and the consequences of such an innovation: its recognition determined the clear overturning of the drawers of the Constitution idea, deleting the previously widely recognized opinion according to which monetary policy was to be considered ancillary to economic policy. In the last chapter the candidate meditates on the European System of Central Banks’ architecture and modus operandi, together with its compatibility with the so called counter-limit of the democratic principle: if, on one hand, the European Central Bank – as all of us are aware of – is entrusted with powers having a strong impact on all citizen of the old continent, on the other the institution seems to lack any mechanism fostering its accountability. On the contrary, the European Central Bank remains jealously attached to a certain secrecy which has been abandoned by other central banks by now. Such an issue appears, on the other hand, sharpened by two other elements: first of all, the broad interpretation the Eurotower gives to its mandate, which brought German Constitutional Court to raise the notorious reference for preliminary ruling before the European Court of Justice. Secondly, the impossibility to enforce such counter-limit within Italian judicial system, in which no mechanism of individual access to constitutional ruling is granted, unlike in German and Spanish experience.