FRANKFURT, May 13 — Germany’s constitutional court hit back today at European institutions over their criticism of its questioning of bond purchases by the European Central Bank.
“Our message to the ECB is almost homeopathic,” the leading judge in the case, Peter Huber, told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
“It should not consider itself the ‘master of the universe’,” he said in an interview published late yesterday.
“All we ask of the ECB is that it accepts its responsibility in the eyes of the public and also justifies it — including towards people who are disadvantaged by its measures.”
In a bombshell ruling last week, Germany’s Constitutional Court questioned the ECB’s bond-buying scheme, which has been credited with powering eurozone growth after the financial crisis.
The judges in Karlsruhe gave the ECB three months to justify the stimulus and show that the benefits of mass government debt purchases outweigh the side effects.
Otherwise, the judges said they will ban Germany’s powerful Bundesbank central bank from participating in the €2 trillion (RM9.4 trillion) scheme.
The court also slammed the Luxembourg-based ECJ for rubber-stamping the asset purchases in an earlier ruling and said Germany was not bound by the ECJ decision.
The ruling drew a furious reaction from the EU, which insisted that European law trumps that of member states.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has also raised the spectre of legal action against Germany.
Legal experts were still poring over the ruling, she had said, adding that “on the basis of these findings, we are considering possible next steps, including infringement proceedings.” — AFP
