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Karlsruhe Not Only Barks, But Finally Bites—Some Remarks on the OMT Decision of the German Constitutional Court

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Niels Petersen

Extract

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On 6 September 2012, the European Central Bank (ECB) published a press release on “Technical features of Outright Monetary Transactions.” In this press release, the ECB announced that it would purchase bonds of Member States participating in the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF)/European Stability Mechanism (ESM) program on the secondary sovereign bond markets under certain conditions. Furthermore, it gave notice that there were no ex ante quantitative limits on the size of these outright monetary transactions (OMT). This OMT announcement of the ECB was challenged before the German Constitutional Court. In a 6:2 decision, the Court raised doubts with regards to the compatibility of the actions announced in the OMT press release with the rules governing the mandate of the ECB in the Treaty for the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), and referred the case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for a preliminary ruling.

Type
Research Article
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 2: Special issue - The OMT Decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court , 01 March 2014 , pp. 321 - 327
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 For the text of the press release, see Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court], Case No. 2 BvR 2728/13, para. 3 (Jan. 14, 2014), http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/rs20140114_2bvr272813en.html [hereinafter OMT Ruling].Google Scholar

2 Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court], Case No. 2 BvL 52/71, 37 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts [BVerfGE] 271 (May 29, 1974); Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court], Case No. 2 BvR 197/83, 73 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts [BVerfGE] 339 (Oct. 22, 1986).Google Scholar

3 Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court], Case No. 2 BvR 2134/92, 89 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts [BVerfGE] 155 (Oct. 12, 1993) [hereinafter Maastricht]; Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court], Case No. 2 BvE 2/08, 123 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts [BVerfGE] 267 (June 30, 2009).Google Scholar

4 See OMT Ruling.Google Scholar

5 See Weiler, Joseph H.H., The “Lisbon Urteil” and the Fast Food Culture, 20 Eur. J. Int'l L. 505, 505 (2009) (stating that “in its internationally-related case law, the German Constitutional Court has a well-earned reputation of the Dog that Barks but does not Bite”).Google Scholar

6 Maastricht at paras. 187–88.Google Scholar

7 Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court], Case No. 2 BvR 2661/06, 126 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts [BVerfGE] 286 (July 6, 2010).Google Scholar

8 Id. at 304.Google Scholar

9 See OMT Ruling at paras. 39–43.Google Scholar

10 Id. at paras. 41, 43.Google Scholar

11 Bundesverfassungsgericht [BVerfG - Federal Constitutional Court], Case No. 2 BvR 1485/10, 129 Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts [BVerfGE] 124, paras. 179–80 (Sept. 7, 2011) [hereinafter European Financial Stability Facility].Google Scholar

12 See OMT Ruling at para. 45.Google Scholar

13 See id. at para. 49.Google Scholar

14 Id. at paras. 17–19.Google Scholar

15 See European Financial Stability Facility at para. 176.Google Scholar

16 See OMT Ruling at para. 49.Google Scholar

17 Id. at para. 20.Google Scholar

18 Id. at paras. 63–79.Google Scholar

19 See Pringle v. Ireland, CJEU Case C-370/12 (Nov. 27 2012), http://curia.europa.eu/juris/recherche.jsf?language=en.Google Scholar

20 Id. at para. 56.Google Scholar

21 See OMT Ruling at para. 64.Google Scholar

22 Id. at paras. 80–83.Google Scholar

23 Id. at para. 81.Google Scholar

24 Id. at para. 82.Google Scholar

25 Id. Google Scholar

26 Id. at para. 83.Google Scholar

27 Id. at paras. 84–94.Google Scholar

28 Id. at para. 85.Google Scholar

29 This was suggested by Judge Peter Michael Huber at a panel discussion at a conference of young public law scholars in Graz on 13 February 2014.Google Scholar

30 See OMT Ruling at 99–100.Google Scholar

31 But see Schneider, Karsten, Der Ultra-vires-Maßstab im Außenverfassungsrecht, 139 Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts (forthcoming 2014) (arguing that the question of whether an action of an EU institution is ultra vires is an exclusive question of German Constitutional law, which does not depend on the interpretation of the EU primary law by the European Court of Justice).Google Scholar

32 See OMT Ruling at para. 23.Google Scholar

33 Id. at para. 11.Google Scholar

34 Id. at paras. 55, 58.Google Scholar