ECB's German board member pushes back against her country's top court

The European Central Bank's German board member said on Monday that only the European Court of Justice has jurisdiction over the central bank, serving a rebuke to her country's highest court. Germany's Constitutional Court ruled last week that the ECB had overstepped its mandate with 2 trillion euros worth of sovereign bond purchases since 2015 and ordered Germany's central bank to exit the scheme unless then ECB can prove its legality within the next three months.

"We will continue to conduct the public sector purchase program and the pandemic emergency purchase program, as well as our other monetary policy measures, in line with our mandate," ECB board member Isabel Schnabel told Italian newspaper La Repubblica. "The European Court of Justice has exclusive jurisdiction over the ECB and its actions," she added.

Addressing the court's accusation that the ECB was conducting economic rather than monetary policy, Schnabel said the bank was continuously assessing whether its measures were "suitable, necessary and proportionate".

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