ABSTRACT
One of the main tasks of the European Monetary Institute (EMI), in which all EU national central banks cooperate, is to make all the necessary preparations which are required for the conduct of the single monetary policy in the monetary union. At the end of 1996, the EMI has completed the specification of the monetary framework of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). It reported on the outcomes in the report ‘The Single Monetary Policy in Stage Three: Specification of the Operational Framework’, published in January 1997. The monetary strategy and the instruments that will be at the disposal of the system are presently being prepared in detail within the working parties of the EMI. Although the formal competence to decide eventually on this framework rests with the ECB Council, which will be established in mid-1998, the contours of major aspects of the framework are already emerging.
