From Karlsruhe, with Love? Questioning the Constitutionality of Unconventional Monetary Policy

Abstract

Does the European Central Bank (ECB) have a mandate to do ‘whatever it takes’ to save the Euro? Not according to the German Constitutional Court, which in February this year delivered its judgment from Karlsruhe on the ECB’s Outright Monetary Transactions programme (OMT). Will the European Court of Justice concur, or will it attempt to resist the might of the most powerful domestic Court in Europe?