EU executive underlines ECB independence after German court ruling

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission repeated on Wednesday that European Union law and courts had primacy over national ones after a German court ruling on Tuesday and stressed the European Central Bank was independent.

"We reaffirm the primacy of EU law. The rulings of the European Court of Justice are binding on all national courts... We have always respected and we fully support the independence of the ECB in its implementation of monetary policy," European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Paolo Gentiloni told a news conference.

​Germany's constitutional court ruled on Tuesday that the Bundesbank must stop buying government bonds under the ECB's long-running stimulus scheme within three months unless the ECB can prove the purchases are needed.

The German ruling came despite the EU's top court ruling in 2018 that the ECB bond buying programme was in line with EU law.

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski and Philip Blenkinsop)

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