KARLSRUHE: Germany’s top court on Tuesday demanded clarification of a key element of the European Central Bank’s support to the eurozone economy, but stopped short of overturning its quantitative easing (QE) bond-buying scheme altogether.

Germany’s Bundesbank central bank will be barred from participating in QE in three months’ time unless the ECB can show its asset purchases are not “disproportionate”, the Constitutional Court (BVG) in Karlsruhe said in a landmark ruling.

The court also raised an unprecedented challenge to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), labelling its earlier ruling rubber-stamping the QE scheme “not comprehensible” and declaring it not legally binding.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2020