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ECB Faces No Shortage of Rebuttals to German Court’s QE Attack

  • Judges gave ECB three months to justify older bond-buying plan
  • Ruling made waves by diverging from guidance of EU’s top court
The European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt.

The European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt.

Photographer: Alex Kraus/Bloomberg

When the shock of Germany’s top-court ruling on the European Central Bank bond-buying program subsides, policy makers should find that arguing their way out of a tight spot isn’t so hard.

The constitutional court’s demand on Tuesday that the ECB justify its multi-trillion-euro bond-buying plan within three months took investors and economists by surprise. They largely expected Germany to follow the assessment by the European Union’s highest tribunal that the program is legal.