ABSTRACT
On December 19, 2002, in preparation for the coming into force of the Treaty of Nice, the European Central Bank (ECB) Governing Council (GC) adopted a recommendation on new GC voting procedures following the enlargement of the eurozone (formally approved on February 3, 2003).1 Prior to this agreement, there was a growing literature on the manner in which enlargement should or might affect ECB decision making institutionally, including Buiter (1999), Fatum (2000), Baldwin et al. (2001a, b), Bjorksten (2000), Eichengreen and Ghironi (2001) and de Grauwe (2000). This chapter contributes to the literature focusing on the efciency of monetary policy making and the coherence of monetary policy making for economically diverse states – including de Grauwe (2000), Gros and Hefeker (2000), European Parliament (2001) and Deutsche Bundesbank (2001) – and the literature on the legitimacy of the existing decision making structures of the European Central Bank, including ECB (2002), Leino (2001), de Haan and Eijfnger (2000), Buiter (1999) and Issing (1999). Recently, Heisenberg (2003) has attempted to bridge discussions about efciency, transparency, enlargement and democratic legitimacy.
