The General Court gives with one hand and takes away with the other Reflections on the judgment in <i>BAWAG PSK Bank v ECB</i> (T-667/21) concerning the ECB's mandate to apply national law

A decade ago, the European Central Bank (ECB) became the chief prudential supervisor of euro area's credit institutions. In order to carry out its supervisory tasks, the ECB is, inter alia, competent to apply national legislation transposing directives, including Capital Requirements Directive IV (CRD IV). The ECB is thus the first EU institution with a mandate to apply not only EU law but also national law. This has raised a number of practical and legal-constitutional questions, many of which remain to be answered. The BAWAG PSK v ECB judgment by the General Court offers some new important insights. In particular, it sheds some light on the scope of national law which the ECB is competent to apply, further clarifies the principles of judicial review of ECB decisions based on national law, and indicates the obligations of the ECB in case the national law which it intends to rely on or apply is in conflict with the directive which it (the national law) is supposed to transpose.