Economics
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.
Photographer: Alex Kraus/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
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.