EU Risks Institutional Showdown After German ECB Ruling
- European Commission may sue Germany for not abiding by EU law
- Threat comes after German constitutional court challenged ECB
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
Photographer: Jason Alden/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The European Commission threatened twice in a weekend to sue Germany over a ruling by the country’s constitutional court challenging the European Central Bank’s monetary authority, raising the prospect of an institutional showdown on the continent amid the deepest recession in a century.
“The final word on EU law is always spoken in Luxembourg. Nowhere else,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement on Sunday, referring to the headquarters of the European Court of Justice. She also threatened a lawsuit after Germany’s constitutional judges gave the ECB a three-month ultimatum to fix alleged flaws in its quantitative easing policy.