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In its judgment on the ECB’s bond purchase program, the Federal Constitutional Court first opposed the Court of Justice of the European Communities. The head of the commission, von der Leyen, is considering an infringement procedure against Germany.
After Karlsruhe’s controversial ruling on the European Central Bank, the President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is apparently investigating an infringement procedure against Germany. This stems from a letter from the Leyens to European green politician Sven Giegold, which is available for the dpa news agency. “I take it very seriously,” said the letter.
The Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) criticized the ECB’s $ 1 billion purchase of government bonds last Tuesday, thus opposing a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Communities (ECJ) for the first time. Unlike the ECJ, the Karlsruhe judges decided that the central bank had exceeded its mandate. The ruling of the ECJ called them “objectively arbitrary” and “methodologically no longer justified.” Therefore, Giegold had asked the EU Commission to initiate an infringement procedure.
Von der Leyen: “The ECJ has the last word”
Von der Leyen, in his response to the MEP, confirmed that the German ruling is currently being analyzed in detail, but has already added: “On the basis of these findings, we are examining possible next steps, including infringement procedures.” The Constitutional Court ruling raised questions that touched the core of European sovereignty, the letter said. The Union’s monetary policy is an exclusive competence. EU law takes precedence over national law and ECJ judgments are binding on all national courts. “The last word on EU law always has the Court of Justice of the European Communities in Luxembourg,” wrote von der Leyen. The EU is a community of values and laws that the EU Commission will uphold and uphold at all times.
Under EU law, this is the responsibility of the Brussels authority: it is the “guardian” of the EU treaties and must punish violations. If you initiate proceedings for breach of contract, this in turn may end before the ECJ.
Commission as “Guardian of Treaties”
Giegold, spokesman for the German Greens and President of the Greens on the European Parliament’s foreign exchange committee, said he was not simply criticizing the Federal Constitutional Court. But the dispute between Karlsruhe and Luxembourg threatens the European legal community. “The Federal Constitutional Court is forcing the Bundesbank, as well as the federal government and the Bundestag to enter into conflict with the ECB,” wrote the Greens politician. Therefore, all EU institutions must clearly support the CJEU. As guardian of the contracts, the Commission had to initiate proceedings. With the ruling, the MEP sees the stability of the monetary union at risk. It also acts as an invitation to the courts of other countries to avoid the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
Giegold is not alone in his criticism: SPD European policy Katarina Barley spoke in the “Passauer Neue Presse” of a fatal signal. European lawyer Franz Mayer compared the sentence to an “atomic bomb”.
Praise of poland
The Karlsruhe judges’ decision was “one of the most important trials in the history of the European Union,” wrote Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, according to the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” (FAS). It may have been said for the first time with this clarity: “Treaties are created by the Member States and determine where the limits of competition for the EU institutions lie.”
In Poland, the national conservative PiS government has been restructuring the judiciary for years. The ECJ intervened several times and found that some of the reforms violated EU law.
