FILE PHOTO: Isabel Schnabel, member of the German advisory board of economic experts attends the 29th Frankfurt European Banking Congress (EBC) at the Old Opera house in Frankfurt, Germany November 22, 2019. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski
May 27, 2020
BERLIN (Reuters) – The German constitutional court’s ruling against the European Central Bank’s bond-buying scheme will not directly affect the ECB and will not lead to the Bundesbank having to exit the scheme, ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel said.
“We are not adjusting our monetary policy in any way in response to this ruling,” Schnabel said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Wednesday.
“We have to avoid a situation in which one national central bank cannot participate in our asset purchase programmes,” she added. “I’m sure there is going to be communication between the Bundesbank and the German parliament and the German government, and one will have to find a solution.”
Germany’s top court ruled earlier this month that the ECB had overstepped its mandate with 2 trillion euros worth of sovereign bond purchases since 2015 and ordered the German central bank to exit the scheme unless the ECB can demonstrate its proportionality within the next three months.
(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa, editing by Thomas Escritt)
