For the first time, the German constitutional court has ruled against the European Court of Justice - causing a quake in Brussels. The commission chief is examining a procedure for breach of contract. Meanwhile, praise comes from Poland.
Brussels / Frankfurt (dpa) - After its controversial judgment on the European Central Bank, the German Federal Constitutional Court received support from Poland.
The decision of the Karlsruhe judges was "one of the most important judgments in the history of the European Union", wrote the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki to the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung" (FAS). Perhaps it was now said for the first time in this clarity: "The Treaties are created by the Member States and they determine where the competence limits lie for the EU institutions."
In Poland, the national conservative PiS government has been restructuring the judiciary for years. The ECJ intervened several times and found that some of the reforms violated EU law.
The Federal Constitutional Court criticized the billion-dollar government bond purchases by the ECB on Tuesday, thereby opposing a judgment of the European Court of Justice for the first time. Unlike the ECJ, the Karlsruhe judges decided that the central bank had overstretched its mandate. They called the ECJ judgment "objectively arbitrary" and "methodologically no longer justifiable".
The German EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is investigating an infringement procedure against Germany. "I take this very seriously," she wrote in a letter to the Green European politician Sven Giegold on Saturday. The latter had asked the EU Commission to initiate such a procedure. Von der Leyen, in her reply to the MEP, confirmed that the German judgment is currently being analyzed in detail, but has already added: "On the basis of these findings, we are examining possible next steps, including infringement proceedings."
The ruling by the Constitutional Court raised questions that touched the core of European sovereignty, the letter said. The Union's monetary policy is an exclusive competence. EU law takes precedence over national law, and judgments by the ECJ are binding on all national courts.
"The last word on EU law always has the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg," wrote von der Leyen. The EU is a community of values and law that the EU Commission will uphold and defend at all times. According to EU law, this is the responsibility of the Brussels authority: it is the "guardian" of the EU treaties and must punish violations. If it initiates proceedings for breach of contracts, this can end up before the ECJ.
Giegold, spokesman for the German Greens and Chairman of the Greens in the currency committee of the European Parliament, said on Saturday that he was not concerned with simple criticism of the Federal Constitutional Court. But the dispute between Karlsruhe and Luxembourg threatens the European legal community.
According to the FAS, Poland's head of government writes that every mature democracy needs a system of separation of powers and a balance of powers. "If this is lacking, any violence, including that of the judiciary, will become arbitrary, unlimited, undemocratic power," said Morawiecki.