A "regular proportionality test to determine whether the use of instruments is sufficient, effective and proportionate, especially with regard to the possible side effects" would be useful. Quantitative benchmarks are important in this context, "because otherwise the proportionality test might just become a collection of arguments strung together. Such a proportionality test "could also be used to communicate the ECB's good exit from crisis policy once the crisis is over," he said.The Karlsruhe judges had previously rejected requests for a so-called enforcement order in the dispute over the ECB's bond purchases under the PSPP program. In their May 2020 ruling on the PSPP purchase program, the judges had demanded that Germany's constitutional bodies conduct a proportionality review of the bond purchases. The Bundestag had complied with this.In an interview with the F.A.Z., Wieland pointed out that the court had made it clear that it was concerned with conducting an appropriate proportionality test and "that it does not itself undertake the substantive review of proportionality."
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