Brussels, 12/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - Sylvie Goulard (ALDE, France) told a handful of reporters on Wednesday 12 February that the German constitutional court's decision to send the European Central Bank's OMT bond purchase scheme to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) before deciding on the scheme's legality itself is highly unusual.
Nothing like this has been done before in the history of the Karlsruhe court, she said. She agrees with the German demand that financial solidarity mechanisms in the eurozone have to have solid legal foundations; she pointed out, however, that the German court's press release took a very anti-OMT approach.
Goulard said that, until May 2012, the judge chairing the debate at the German court, Peter Huber, was a member of the curatorium of Mehr Demokratie e.V., an organisation aiming to ensure greater democratic legitimacy in Europe, which was involved in the lodging of the German court's case against the OMT at the Court of Justice. The OMT scheme has never yet been activated. It allows the unrestricted purchase of sovereign bonds from struggling eurozone nations (see EUROPE 10683).
Now that the case has been sent to the ECB, the Karlsruhe court has postponed its own ruling on OMT. On Tuesday 18 March, a ruling is expected on the legality of the intergovernmental agreements forming the basis of the European Stability Mechanism and the Budget Pact. (MB/transl.fl)