Marc van der Moude, the President of the General Court of the European Union, expressed his “deep concern” on Monday 8 June about the ruling of the German Constitutional Court which questions the primacy of EU law and challenges the proportionate nature of the Quantitative Easing operation launched in 2015 by the European Central Bank (ECB) to combat the risk of deflation by massively buying back mainly public securities (see EUROPE 12480/17).
The Karlsruhe Court ruling does not seek to delimit the respective competences of the Union and Germany, but constitutes “direct interference in the functioning of the European legal order” whose “fragile” balance depends on the “trust” placed in the system, Mr van der Moude said in an op-ed published in the daily Le Monde.
According to him, by considering that it is not bound by the December 2018 EU Court of Justice ruling validating Quantitative Easing, the German Constitutional Court is creating a “hitherto unknown” situation that could have “systemic consequences” for the Union's legal order.
The President of the General Court added: “If one of the national courts seeks to impose its national methods of interpretation and control on acts made by the European institutions in the areas of competence attributed to them, that court takes the place of the Court of Justice and compromises uniformity in the interpretation and application of the Treaties”.
And this risk, if it materialises, could encourage the dismantling of the rule of law by giving arguments to the national political powers, which are slowly but surely placing their justice system under their remit, considered Mr van der Moude, without explicitly referring to Poland, where certain ministers had welcomed the Karlsruhe Court ruling.
In the end, the President of the General Court advocates the continuation of the dialogue between the European and national levels in order to find a mutually acceptable solution. “The Treaties provide the necessary remedies by allowing any court to refer new questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling”, he said.
As guardian of the Treaties, the Commission has not given its final interpretation of the Karlsruhe Court judgment (see EUROPE 12484/18). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)