Challenging the evolution of the EMU: the justiciability of soft law measures enacted by the ECB against the financial crisis before the European Courts

Despite the Treaties confer on the ECB mere technical tasks, since the outbreak of the financial crisis the ECB has been taking several policy actions, partly filling the lack of a strong political authority in the Economic and Monetary Union. In doing so, the ECB has also been relying on soft law or simply on communication strategies, in order to manage the expectations of market operators without – formally – breaching its constitutional limits. For the time being, the soft law acts adopted for this purpose have been brought before European (i.e. national and purely EU) Courts mainly in three cases: von Storch, Gauweiler and UK v. ECB (Clearing Houses). The article analyses in detail these cases and develops a critical approach towards the justiciability of ECB's soft law and its meaning for the EU legal order as a whole.