Il governo tecnocratico della moneta e i crocevia del processo di integrazione europea. Riflessioni alla luce della sentenza Weiss

Abstract

The well known judgment of the German Constitutional Court in the “Weiss” case has been widely criticized under EU law, mainly because of its being in contrast with a preliminary ruling rendered by the European Court of Justice in 2018. At variance with these criticisms, it is here submitted that such a judgment brings well into focus some institutional ambiguities of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU); namely, the powers (more and more) exercised by the European Central Bank (ECB) in the field of macroeconomic regulation and control, in spite of (its) not being provided with political legitimacy. Seen in this perspective, the “Karlsruhe” judgment objectively looks as aimed at restoring a more balanced relationship between different institutional EMU actors, in accordance with their different degree of political legitimacy. Finally, both the role so far (i.e., starting from the “whatever it takes”) played from the ECB and the respective roles played by the German Constitutional Court and the German Government in closing this affair are construed as symptoms of the current imbalances of the European integration process.