BERLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Markus C. Kerber, the counsel of the plaintiff group, Europolis, before the German Federal Constitutional Court, has called upon the General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg, in pioneering proceedings, to see whether the practice used by the European Central Bank (ECB) since 2010 of buying bonds and the suspension of the credit rating threshold values for Greek, Irish and Portuguese government bonds (qualitative easing) is lawful. Jean-Claude Trichet will thus, as President of the ECB, have to answer for the bank on these measures before the court. This step is, it is said, essential, after the Federal Constitutional Court refused to submit the question to the General Court of the European Union for arbitration on European legal questions (Art. 123-125, Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union).
Kerber fears that the floodgates have been opened for the ECB to become active in areas that lie outside its remit. He is demanding that the Court penalize the flagrant breaches of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. If not, the entire euro system would stray into a legislation-free area.
The outcome of this case will depend whether citizens of the European Union, and in particular citizens within the eurozone, will be in a position to have compliance with the normative rules of European Economic and Monetary Union tested in the courts.
The fate of European Economic and Monetary Union as a legal community lies henceforth in the hands of the Union’s judges, according to Kerber.
Europolis:
Europolis is a German initiative for European regulatory policy. The ambitions of the research association are to ensure the stability of currencies and prices institutionally, to promote consolidation of public finances, to encourage greater competition and to give priority to subsidiarity.