Greening Central Banking in the EU: Closing the Judicial Accountability Gap

This article elaborates and discusses the idea of a judicial accountability gap in the context of climate change policy-related obligations of central banks in the EU. With the interest in incorporation of climate change considerations in monetary policy on the rise, legal scholarship has focused largely on the toolbox at the disposal of central bankers and political accountability of central bankers with respect to the sustainability transition. The judicial route has so far remained largely unexplored, the general global trend of climate litigation notwithstanding. We content that this is an omission, especially where accountability tools to ensure adequate contributions of institutions to the goals of sustainability transition are lacking. The article closes this gap by (a) highlighting the accountability gap that exists in incorporating these goals into monetary policy across the EU; (b) outlining the EU central banks' Treaty-embedded "green" obligations pointing as well to the risks posed by divergent practices across the EU in this regard; (c) discussing how any infringements of EU Treaty obligations of within the European System of Central Banks (ESCB), could be addressed through judicial accountability understood as judicial control of legality of central bank action and sketch possible avenues for EU courts to review EU central banks' action. We conclude by discussing the prospects and the limitations of the approach advanced in the article, in particular vis-& agrave;-vis the EU central banks not (yet) part of the Eurosystem.