Reuters reports that Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the independence of the European Central Bank is key to the foundations of the European Union and no constitutional court should decide what it can do.

He spoke after Germany's highest court gave the European Central Bank three months to justify bond purchases under its flagship stimulus Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) or lose the Bundesbank as a participant.

"It is not up to any constitutional court to decide what the ECB can or cannot do. Its independence is the fulcrum of the European treaties, which are recognised by Germany too," Conte told newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano in an interview.

"I find it out of place for a national court, although a constitutional one, to ask the ECB to justify its purchases. It cannot interfere in these initiatives," he added.

The ECB's separate 750 billion euro ($813.70 billion) scheme, approved last month to prop up the coronavirus-stricken euro area economy, remained unaffected, as the Constitutional Court said its decision did not apply to that.

Conte said Italy did not need the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) but it would be hard for the new European Recovery Fund, built to help countries recover from the coronavirus pandemic, to take off before the summer.