Analysis of Appointment to Office of Central Bank Governor in the Member States of the EU

Summary

This paper focuses on one of the fundamental aspects of central bank personal independence, namely how the central bank governor, as the head of the central bank acting for the bank, is appointed. The background of this paper is related to the recent appointment of a new Governor of the Czech National Bank, which has raised many questions among experts, but also instability in the financial markets. Within this starting point, the paper then poses the primary hypothesis of whether the Czech process of appointing the Governor of the Czech central bank is unusual among EU mMember States. An analysis of the process of appointing the governor in all other EU countries was conducted to answer this hypothesis. The results of this analysis were systematically arranged to identify which procedures prevail. Based on this analysis, it was concluded that the governor appointment process in the Czech Republic is unique.