Germany’s Supreme Court Deserves Our Thanks
No, Germany’s constitutional judges didn’t just diss the ECB and the EU. They reminded Europe to fix the currency union properly.
From a higher power.
Photographer: Uli Deck/AFP via Getty Images
So orderly, so nit-picking, so German. This week, Germany’s constitutional court in Karlsruhe finally delivered its verdict on the European Central Bank’s most prominent bond-buying program. Weighing in at 110 pages, this ruling was historic. For the first time, a national court in effect overruled the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
Well spaced out because of the new coronavirus rules, the red-robed judges didn’t exactly blow up the ECB policy in question, known as the public sector purchase program (or PSPP). But they sure gave the German government, parliament and central bank, as well as the ECB, a lot of work to do if they want to keep it.