Abstract
The article begins with a presentation of the new European Stability Mechanism implemented in September 2012. It describes the operating principles, procedures for granting fnancial assistance for EMU members, and organizational structure of the institution. The major objective of the article is to assess the effectiveness of ESM from the economic perspective; therefore, the research question is whether the ESM can prove useful in combating the current European sovereign debt crisis (and possible future crises). In order to answer this question, EU treaties and legal acts as well as the economic literature were analyzed. The author concludes that the ESM has very limited power in fighting the sovereign debt crisis, since its capability to support the largest EMU countries (should the need arise) is highly insufficient. Furthermore, being a simple loan mechanism, it cannot prevent any future crises.