Droit et Économie - L'avenir de l'Union économique et monétaire : une perspective franco-allemande - 118

118 L'AVENIR DE L'UNION ÉCONOMIQUE ET MONÉTAIRE

The landmark preliminary ruling by the ECJ in Gauweiler29 on the scope of
the EU monetary policy competence (see also § 4) and even more so the substantive arguments against the compatibility of the ECB-announced Outright
Monetary Transactions submitted in the underlying preliminary reference by
the German Federal Constitutional Court30 bear witness to the difficulties in
dealing with this tension in the face of today's overtly complex multidimensional European constitutional legal order, in which national constitutions
remain an important anchor for the democratic legitimation of supranational
action.31 The fact that the transfer of monetary policy power to an independent European monetary authority may in certain instances have been sanctioned by the national constitution, as is the case for the German Basic Law of
1949 and the French Constitution of 1958,32 cannot vindicate its removal
from adequate mechanisms of democratic accountability.

B. Fiscal policy in the euro area
A certain disjunction between economics and law and politics is arguably
also what characterises the approach to economic or fiscal policy in EMU.
At a general level, it can be argued that the basic economic principles and
concrete rules making up the economic policy coordination framework currently laid down namely in Title VIII, chapter 1, TFEU are primarily geared
towards securing monetary dominance in the euro area by intending to
exclude monetarising of deficits and the dealing of deficits by means of
inflation.33 Namely the prohibitions of monetary financing (Article 123(1)
29. Case C-62/14, Gauweiler et al., ECLI:EU:C:2015:400. For a comprehensive review of the judgment see BORGER V., "Outright Monetary Transactions and the stability mandate of the ECB:
Gauweiler", CML Rev. 53: 139-196, 2016.
30. BVerfG, Order of the Second Senate of 14 January 2014 - 2 BvR 2728/13 - paras. (1-24).
Sympathising with the substantive concerns of the German judges regarding the legality of
OMT: RUFFERT M., "The EMU in the ECJ: A New Dimension of Dispute Resolution in the Process of European Integration", in DANIELE L., SIMONE P., and CISOTTA R. (Eds.), Democracy in the
EMU in the Aftermath of the Crisis (Springer, 2017), 335-352. Critical: THIELE A., "Friendly or
Unfriendly Act: The Historical Referral of the Constitutional Court to the ECJ regarding the
ECB's OMT Program", 15 German L.J. 241 (2014).
31. AMTENBRINK F., "The Multidimensional Constitutional Legal Order of the European Union - A
Successful Case of Cosmopolitan Constitution-Building?", Netherlands Yearbook of International
Law, vol. XXXIX 2008, 3-68.
32. See Art. 88, 2nd sentence, German Basic Law (as amended) and Art. 88-2 French Constitution
(as amended).
33. PRAET P., "Public sector security purchases and monetary dominance in a monetary union
without a fiscal union", Speech at the Conference The ECB and Its Watchers XVI, Contribution to the Panel on Low-interest-rate Policy and Non-standard Monetary Policy Measures:
Effectiveness and Challenges, Frankfurt am Main, 11 March 2015. Available at

(accessed
15 February 2018). See also WEIDMANN J., "Who Calls the Shots? The Problem of Fiscal Dominance", Speech at the BdF-BBk Macroeconomics and Finance Conference, Paris, 24.05.2013.

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2015/html/sp150311_1.en.html

Droit et Économie - L'avenir de l'Union économique et monétaire : une perspective franco-allemande

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