EU Commission initiates infringement proceedings against Germany

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The Brussels headquarters of the EU Commission: who decides what is law?

Photo: Arne Immanuel Bänsch / dpa

The dispute over the multi-billion dollar government bond purchases by the ECB is being legally extended: The EU Commission has initiated infringement proceedings against Germany because of a controversial ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court on the bond purchases.

The commission announced that a letter had been sent to the government in Berlin. In May 2020, the Karlsruhe judges classified the trillion dollar purchases of government bonds from the euro countries by the ECB as partially unconstitutional. In doing so, they had opposed the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which ruled at the end of 2018 that the purchases did not violate EU law. At its core, the conflict is about the primacy of European law.

The EU Commission is regarded as the “guardian of the EU treaties”.

It usually starts such a procedure when it is of the opinion that a country has violated European law.

With the request for information that is now beginning, Germany must first respond within a period of two months.

If the dispute cannot be resolved, it could end up before the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which can impose a fine.

mic / Reuters