Karlsruhe knows its limits.
Last year, the constitutional judges had dared to take on German constitutional bodies and European institutions at the same time.
The pandemic was just rolling in, the EU member states were in shock, and investors in the financial markets were nervous anyway.
The German judges pushed all these accompanying circumstances aside in order to send a fundamental appeal to Luxembourg and Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin: Take a closer look when you make billions in fundamental decisions. This was difficult to cope with, especially for an institution like the European Central Bank (ECB), which previously had to justify itself sporadically at best for its intervention in market events.
Contrary to what many suspected, this bang has neither aggravated the corona crisis nor badly damaged the ECB or even Europe. Rather, it created a new hustle and bustle among central bankers and parliamentarians. They were suddenly forced to deal with the consequences of monetary policy for savers, borrowers, tenants and home buyers in a much more comprehensive and therefore more comprehensible manner.
We can confidently assess differently whether this will improve the situation in the long term.
That will also have to do with the trust that is placed in the various institutions.
In any case, it is correct that now - a year later - the Karlsruhe judges are adopting a completely different tone: They are putting themselves back in the row of different actors who keep a democracy going.
After all, the Constitutional Court cannot do this work alone.
The judges can only intervene very selectively and have neither the competence nor the leisure to make economic or even monetary policy decisions and then to monitor them permanently.
Others have to do that.