European Central Bank

The European Central Bank (ECB) is the central bank for the Eurozone, a monetary union of 19 member states that have adopted the euro as their common currency. It is headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany and its primary objective is to maintain price stability within the Eurozone by ensuring inflation remains at an acceptable level. The ECB was established on 1 June 1998 following ratification of Treaty establishing the European Community which called for creation of such an institution. Its President is Christine Lagarde and it has 23 Executive Board members representing all 19 Eurozone nations plus four non-Eurozone countries involved in EU institutional activities related to banking or economic affairs.

In addition to maintaining price stability, other tasks assigned to ECB include: setting interest rates; conducting foreign exchange operations; issuing euro banknotes; promoting safe and sound banking practices among financial institutions operating in Europe; supervising banks throughout Europe through its Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM); overseeing payment systems across Europe with TARGET2 system developed jointly with national central banks; providing liquidity assistance via Emergency Liquidity Assistance program when needed by troubled national economies/banks under certain conditions stipulated by Maastricht Treaty etc.. To achieve its goals, ECB can use several policy instruments including open market operations i.e buying & selling government bonds), marginal lending facility whereby short term loans are provided against eligible collateral securities held by a counterparty , deposit facilities where excess liquidity can be deposited overnight at lower rate than would otherwise prevail and minimum reserve requirements set on commercial banks deposits held with National Central Banks & lastly regular press conferences explaining decisions taken & giving views on current situation .

As a supranational organization independent from any particular country’s political interference in decision making process regarding money supply levels etc.,the ECB strives towards achieving highest degree transparency possible while adapting policies based upon economic data collected over time from various sources like harmonized consumer prices index(HCPI).It also publishes monthly bulletin containing information about recent developments related to monetary policy formulation along with macroeconomic statistics compiled after collecting relevant data from each individual state belonging EC community thereby forming single unified platform accessible everywhere without having need for translation services .