The dispute on proportionality: The secret papers of the ECB

The German Bundestag has now to get the documents of the European Central Bank to end the dispute with the German Federal constitutional court. This is apparent from documents available to the F. A., for example. The papers of the deputies of the Assembly can be.

Christian Siedenbiedel

editor in the economy.

in Parallel, the ECB said Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel, in a speech, as the ECB introduces a consideration of the proportionality of bond purchases, as the court has requested, however, on the basis of the current crisis program, PEPP, not of the old of the constitutional court, criticised the programme.

The papers for the Bundestag, in which the Central Bank tries to set the proportionality of its bond purchases to present, have been forwarded to the deputies, apparently, by the Federal Ministry of Finance. The Ministry did not want to yet comment on whether the documents had been classified by the Central Bank as the "ECB confidental", had arrived with her already. Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz had merely informed, you stand with the German Federal Bank President Jens Weidmann and all other actors in the exchange and was confident that a good solution will be found.

distribution effect in favour of the poor

In the papers, which are the Vernehmennachum older, already existing analyses and minutes of the governing Council, at least for the part not yet public, are effects and consequences desanleihe purchase program, PSPP 2015, will be addressed. Models for the impact assessment are to be used. In the period from which these documents originate, had to minutes of the meetings of the governing Council are not published yet.

Now, this is different. In the logs of the recent ECB meeting, the Central Bank even at three Points explicitly to the question of the proportionality of the current bond purchases in the crisis program PEPP – where the justification is rather General.

Whether or not these documents, the ECB comply with the requirements of the Federal constitutional court, is not sure yet. The Central Bank lawyer Helmut Siekmann, Institute for Law and Finance of Goethe University in Frankfurt, said the F. A. Z., his first impression was that the requirements of the court could formally be fulfilled if it were documents of the governing Council, what appears to be the case. Nevertheless, one must examine the content, of course, whether the documents had, in this respect, the criteria set by the court.