On 30 June 2009, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled on the Treaty of Lisbon. The Basic Law, it said, forbids the transfer of the Kompetenz-Kompetenz, the power of a body to decide its own powers. The European Union may act only where powers have been conferred on it, one by one. On 5 May 2020, the court applied this to the European Central Bank’s bond purchase program. The headline of its press release called the ECB’s decisions kompetenzwidrig, contrary to its competence. The court also held that a 2018 ruling of the European Court of Justice on the program had been made ultra vires, outside that court’s powers. The Bundesbank received a transition period of no more than three months.