Germany’s Constitutional Court largely upheld several complaints against the European Central Bank’s purchase of government bonds under a program started in 2015 and meant to boost the economy and stoke inflation toward the central bank’s own target of just below 2%.
Tuesday’s ruling by Germany’s surpreme court was the result of years of debate over the role of the eurozone’s central bank. It did not cover current ECB aid issued in response to the coronavirus crisis, with the ECB having launched a special Pandemic Emergency Purchase Program.
The judges in Karlsruhe raised concerns back in 2017 that one specific part of the bond-buying program, the Public Sector Purchase Program (PSPP), could engage in economic policy and direct government financing, both of which the ECB is prohibited from doing.
Germany’s supreme court stated it could not find any proof of direct government financing by the ECB. But it found that both the German government and lawmakers had failed to scrutinize the objectives and mechanisms involved in the ECB’s bond buying program. The judges said there had never been a thorough analysis of whether the ECB’s PSPP scheme was really an adequate measure to boost the economies of the 19-member eurozone.
The European Court of Justice took up the case and ruled in December 2018 that the ECB’s decision to buy sovereign bonds was valid and within the bank’s mandate, despite the concerns voiced by some in Germany. However, concerns in Karlsruhe had remained all along.
Source: Deutsche Welle
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