The German Federal Constitutional Court’s Decision in Weiss

This contribution offers a contextual analysis of the controversial judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) in Weiss, thereby identifying the main roots of the conflict between the BVerfG and the European Court of Justice (ECJ). This conflict, which essentially also includes the European Central Bank (ECB), is rooted in a unique convergence of two fundamental and until this very day unresolved issues: the legal fiction in primary Union law of the separability of economic from monetary policy, and the irresolvable conflict between the Union law’s primacy and the national constitutional limits thereof, fuelled by the unbalanced institutional relationship between the independent ECB and a national constitutional court. Due to the structural nature of the problems there are no ready-made solutions.