To be concrete, it has been argued by high officials of the European System of Central Banks (hereinafter ESCB) – supported by academic writings on this issue – that the ECB was a separate actor outside the EC, a new Community of its own and that it could not be called the central bank of the European Communities. (Zilioli/Selmayr 2000 p. 622) In terms of the temple structure of the EU with three pillars, the following diagram summarizes the status of the ECB according to this thesis:
Figure 1 new (Zilioli/Selmayr 2000 624)
To be sure, this does not amount to the insertion of a "pilier monétaire" as fourth pillar as had been proposed by France, but which had been rejected by the IGC,(Louis 1997 p.591), as also Zilioli /Selmayr stressed. Though, this location of monetary policy in the first and central pillar, the "heart" of the European Union on a firm basis of Community law, would not mean that monetary sovereignty had been transferred to the EC, but, in their view, directly from the Member States to the ECB. (Zilioli /Selmayr 2000 pp. 602, 611) It was claimed that the clear division made in the Treaty itself, not only in secondary law, made it a separate entity distinct from the Community.