BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel told senior party officials on Monday that a ruling by Germany’s Constitutional Court taking aim at a European Central Bank stimulus programme is “solvable” if the bank explains the plan, two participants at the meeting said.
The court last week gave the ECB three months to justify bond purchases under its flagship stimulus plan or risk losing the Bundesbank as a participant, and called on the German parliament and government to challenge the bank on the matter.
Merkel told Monday’s meeting of top officials from her Christian Democrats it was understandable that the European Commission had stressed that national courts cannot call the rulings of the European Court of Justice into question, the participants said.
Merkel called for a “wise” response to the ruling, which she said was of great significance, the participants said. She said it was problematic that some other EU governments had welcomed the court ruling, alluding to the approval of Poland, for example.
The CDU Executive Committee did not debate the matter, the sources said.
Parliamentary sources said last week German lawmakers were debating whether to require their national central bank, the Bundesbank, to report to them on ECB policy after the country’s top court took aim at an ECB stimulus plan.
The Bundesbank is the biggest of the euro zone’s national central banks, which implement ECB policy decisions such as bond purchases.
ECB policymakers regularly appear in the European and national parliaments, but accepting political interference in monetary policy matters would be anathema to the central bank, for whom independence is sacrosanct.
The EU’s top court said on Friday it alone had the power to decide whether EU bodies are breaching the bloc’s rules. The ECB has resisted a German court’s attempt to curb its power to buy government bonds.
(Reporting by Andreas Rinke; Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Michelle Martin)
