A call to impossibility : the methodology of interpretation at the European Court of Justice and the PSPP ruling

Abstract

This article addresses the use of interpretative methods in the practice of the European Court of Justice. It first discusses the multifaceted context in which the Court operates, and then analyses each of the Court's traditional methods of interpretation separately. Drawing a distinction between the Court's judges and its Advocates General, it shows that there are important limits to how constraining interpretative methods can be. The article also illustrates the potential complications that can arise from the act of ascribing to the process of judicial interpretation a greater role than it can, in fact, assume. In this sense, the German Federal Constitutional Court's ruling regarding the powers of the European Central Bank (known as the PSPP decision) is analysed from the perspective of the methodological challenges it raises.