Court victory frees European Central Bank ‘to do whatever it takes’

The European Central Bank won crucial backing yesterday for its pledge to do whatever it takes to support the euro when a top EU legal adviser removed a key hurdle to the bank’s plans to buy government bonds to bolster the economy.

Pedro Cruz Villalon, advocate general to the European Court of Justice, said a 2012 ECB bond-buying plan, designed at the height of the eurozone crisis to avert a break-up of the single currency and unused so far, did not break EU law.

It was a setback for those in Germany’s conservative financial establishment who want to stop ECB plans to print fresh money to buy government bonds and a boost for the Frankfurt-based central bank. ECB Executive Board member Yves Mersch said the opinion showed the bank had “considerable discretion” over policy.