The recent years in Europe have been characterized by the financial and economic crisis resp the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area. In this regard many actions have been taken to overcome the problems. A prominent role has played the ESCB, composed of the ECB and the national central banks. Some measures have engendered criticism, which has lead to the question of the democratic legitimation of the ECB and the OeNB. In the second chapter several concepts of legitimation are analyzed. Firstly, input-legitimation, which means government through the people, is illustrated by the example of the German constitution. Secondly, output-legitimation based on the concept developed by Scharpf, which means government for the people, is another concept presented. Thirdly, "Legitimation durch Verfahren" of Luhman, a concept of throughput legitimation, is described. The last concept presented is the plural legitimation of Schliesky, which combines input- and output-legitimation. In the last part of this chapter the implementation of democratic legitimation in Austria as well as in the EU is depicted. In the third chapter the ECB, the ESCB and the OeNB are described. Therefore, the legal frame, the objectives and tasks, the organization as such, as well as the instruments implementing accountability and transparency are investigated. Based on this analysis, the question of democratic legitimation of the ECB and the OeNB is answered in the fourth part. For this purpose the above mentioned concepts (input-legitimation, output-legitimation and throughput-legitimation) are applied to the ECB and the OeNB. The results are interpreted and the question, whether the level of democratic legitimation is high enough or not has to be answered. If the question is answered in the negative, the possibility of justifying the democratic deficit has to be analyzed. Additionally, in regard to the OeNB, the implications of its integration into the ESCB have to be worked out. |