Link to the University of Pittsburgh
Link to the University Library SystemContact us link
AEI Banner

Flashlight Europe N°5–June 2015. OMT is Monetary Policy and Not Economic Policy

Hoffmann, Isabell (2015) Flashlight Europe N°5–June 2015. OMT is Monetary Policy and Not Economic Policy. [Policy Paper]

[img] PDF - Published Version
Download (318Kb)

    Abstract

    In January 2014, for the first time in its history, the German Federal Constitutional Court submitted several questions to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg and asked for a preliminary ruling. The questions had arisen within the framework of the OMT case, and the issue was whether or not the OMT (“outright monetary transactions”) programme announced by Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), is in compliance with the law of the European Union. The OMT programme (which has be-come well-known because Draghi said “what-ever it takes to preserve the euro” when he unveiled it) plays an important role in the stabilization of the euro area. It means that the European System of Central Banks will be empowered to engage in unlimited buying of government bonds issued by certain Member States if and as long as these Member States are simultaneously taking part in a European rescue or reform programme (under the EFSF ot the ESM). Hitherto the OMT has not been implemented. Nonetheless a suit contesting its legality was filed with the Federal Constitutional Court. The European Court of Justice now had to decide whether or not the activities of the ECB were in compliance with European law. How-ever, the ECJ had to take into account the prior assessment of the Federal Constitutional Court. In its submission the Federal Constitutional Court made it quite clear that it was of the opinion that there has been a violation of European law. But at the same time it did not exclude the possibility that the ECJ set up legal conditions for OMT in order to avoid a violation of European law.

    Export/Citation:EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII (Chicago style) | HTML Citation | OpenURL
    Social Networking:
    Item Type: Policy Paper
    Subjects for non-EU documents: Countries > Germany
    EU policies and themes > Policies & related activities > economic and financial affairs > monetary policy
    Subjects for EU documents: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Series and Periodicals: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Annual Reports: UNSPECIFIED
    Series: Series > Bertelsmann Stiftung/Foundation (Gutersloh, Germany) > EU-Flashlight
    Depositing User: Phil Wilkin
    Official EU Document: No
    Language: English
    Date Deposited: 17 Sep 2015 15:40
    Number of Pages: 4
    Last Modified: 11 Feb 2016 16:45
    URI: http://aei.pitt.edu/id/eprint/67304

    Actions (login required)

    View Item

    Document Downloads