Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said he did not share the view of Germany's constitutional court that the European Central Bank may be violating laws on monetary financing with its €2.3 trillion asset purchase programme.
"I don't share this opinion," Schaeuble said during a business dinner hosted by the Handelsblatt business newspaper. "I believe that the (ECB) mandate is being implemented," he added in a rare defence of the central bank.
He said that the ECB was exhausting the tools at its disposal to "fulfil its hellishly difficult task of devising a monetary policy for many different countries."
He said it was not helpful to the discussion about the independence of ECB monetary policy to mention Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann as a possible successor to ECB chief Mario Draghi.
The Germany's highest court on Tuesday said the European Central Bank may be violating a ban on financing governments in its €2.3 trillion asset purchase programme and asked Europe's highest court to rule on the matter.
The quantitative easing scheme may go beyond the bank's mandate and inhibit eurozone members' activities
Though the court's comments represented a big legal challenge to the ECB's efforts to revive growth, the decision was generally seen as positive for the central bank since the European Court of Justice has backed one of its bond-buying schemes in the past.
But it may limit the Frankfurt-based bank's options when deciding whether, and how, to extend purchases into a fourth year.
Judges at the Karlsruhe-based court said bond buys under the quantitative easing (QE) scheme may go beyond the bank's mandate and inhibit eurozone members' activities.
"Significant reasons indicate that the ECB decisions governing the asset purchase programme violate the prohibition of monetary financing and exceed the monetary policy mandate of the European Central Bank, thus encroaching upon the competences of the Member States," the court said.
It said it would ask the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice to review the programme.