Critics of the very loose monetary policy of the European Central Bank (ECB) see themselves confirmed by the latest developments in inflation rates - and want this aspect to be given greater consideration before the Federal Constitutional Court.

A group of entrepreneurs and professors around the economics professor Johann Heinrich von Stein with the legal representative Markus Kerber has now stepped up in their constitutional complaint proceedings against the huge corona emergency aid from the ECB.

As Kerber told the FAZ, another 50 pages of brief were currently submitted in Karlsruhe after a constitutional complaint with a very extensive complaint had been filed in March (Az. 2 BvR 420/21).

Christian Siedenbiedel

Editor in business.

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In March, the complainants primarily asserted that the ECB's PEPP crisis program, which has a volume of EUR 1.85 trillion, violated the ban on monetary state financing and thus violated Article 123 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

With the emergency aid program, the central bank is finally breaking out of its scope of competence;

it is an economic and financial policy measure to stabilize or even rescue the euro zone.

Almost 5 percent inflation

The inflation rates that have risen since then provide the critics of the ECB's policy with new ammunition. You now particularly point out the "flagrant contradiction between the alleged goal of the PEPP - reaching the inflation rate of 2 percent - and the inflation rate of almost 5 percent that has now occurred in Germany". "In view of the current, unfortunately persistent, inflation in Germany, the PEPP cannot be continued for a day," said Kerber: "If it continues, the ECB will fall into a trap." In view of the inflation trend, the ECB can no longer rely on a stability policy Justification of the PEPP bond purchases. Instead, it is to be feared that the ECB will only maintain the contested emergency program,in order to keep the interest rates for “high-debt countries” in the Eurozone artificially below the market level. In doing so, the complainants argue, the ECB is clearly violating the ban on monetary state financing.

When comparing the inflation rates with the target of the ECB it is noticeable: The complainants name the current monthly inflation rates in Germany, which are actually approaching 5 percent, and contrast them with the ECB target of 2 percent, which, however, applies to the euro area as a whole and is interpreted in the medium term.

In any case, the ECB argues that it expects average inflation rates in the euro area of ​​1.7 and 1.5 percent for the next year and the year after that - and both will be less than 2 percent.

Critic Kerber calls these ECB forecasts determined by political wishful thinking.

He also denies the legality of the weighted average measures used for inflation: price stability must also be guaranteed in every single euro area.