The reference pointedly challenged the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) program, an initiative by the European Central Bank (ECB) to bolster economic stability by purchasing Eurozone government bonds on secondary markets.
102 It follows that, as the Advocate General has observed in point 227 of his Opinion, when the ECB purchases government bonds on secondary markets, sufficient safeguards must be built into its intervention to ensure that the latter does not fall foul of the prohibition of monetary financing in Article 123(1) TFEU.
Intervention by the ESCB of the kind provided for by a programme such as that at issue in the main proceedings thus cannot be treated as equivalent to a measure granting financial assistance to a Member State.
105 However, the explanations provided by the ECB in these proceedings have made clear that the implementation of a programme such as that announced in the press release must be subject to conditions intended to ensure that the ESCB’s intervention on secondary markets does not have an effect equivalent to that of a direct purchase of government bonds on the primary market.Following the ECJ’s opinion, contemporary commentators worried that the German Constitutional Court would challenge its primacy.
[5] The GFCC found the ECJ’s response to its preliminary reference inadequate, arguing that it failed to consider “the importance and scope of the principle of proportionality,” which had justified restraint in Gauweiler.