The EBC Monetary Policy Instruments in Times of Financial Turmoil

The aim of the article is to present the monetary policy instruments used by the European Central Bank during the financial crisis of 2007–2010. There have been many instruments aimed at providing liquidity to the banking system and reducing short –term interest rates volatility. Apart from the classical instrument of interest rates reductions, ECB used a broad set of standard instruments and procedures of liquidity provision, modifying lots of them. However, one cannot name EBC the innovative central bank in its crisis management policy. All of the instruments were in fact monetary policy tools in the 60thies or 70thies. ECB did not provide as many innovative stabilization programmes as other central banks (FED, for example). The crisis management policy of the ECB should be judged positively, due to special institutional and organizational framework under which it operates