The BVerfG PSPP/Weiss Urteil and the Euro Area: a Constitutional Crossroads, a Dead-End ... or Perhaps Not So Much?

This article comments on the BVerfGSecond Senate¿s PSPP/Weiss Urteil, which declared as ultra vires the Decisions of the European Central Bank on a Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP), on the previous BVerfG¿s case-law on such ultra vires control of EU derivative legislation, as well as on the EUCJ¿s Weiss Judgement which upheld such Decisions, in response to a preliminary reference submitted by the aforementioned Second Senate in the same case. The paper also reviews whether such EU legal acts truly breached the fundamental right to vote of the complainants before the BVerfG, as the Judgement found, or if it was rather an abstract claim due to an economic and political discrepancy in relation to the contested acts but lacking any actual legal relevance. The conformity with EU law of theBVerfG¿s doctrine of its ultra vires Kontrolleon EU secondary law is also discussed, noting that its PSPP/Weiss Urteilhas been the first German ruling to annul EU legal acts in application of such doctrine. The article concludes reflecting on the formallegal effects, if any, as well as on the unformal ones (maybe many), of this BVerfG¿ Second Senate judgement over the future of the Euro Area.

The BVerfG PSPP/Weiss Urteil and the Euro Area: a Constitutional Crossroads, a Dead-End ... or Perhaps Not So Much? Articles