Germany and the European Crisis: Confusion and Delay

Yesterday, the BBC’s man in Berlin discovered that there are constitutional limits to Merkel’s ability to somehow save the Euro. Following a constitutional amendment in the 1990s, article 23 of the Basic Law stipulates that any further transfers of sovereignty to the EU require absolute two-thirds majorities in both the Bundestag and the Federal Council (which represents the Länder). That is a tough call. Her Majesty’s government may talk about red lines, Germany has them.

Just yesterday, the Federal Constitutional Court strengthened the role of parliament in a ruling on the decision through which the temporary bailout fund EFSF had been implemented last year. While this does not affect the EFSF’s status, it further increased the pressure on the government to liaise with parliament, the states, and the opposition parties.

Today, it briefly looked like the saga of saving the Euro could go ahead as far as Germany is concerned: Merkel’s coalition, the Social Democrats and the Greens declared that they had reached an agreement on the fiscal pact and the permanent ESF. That seemed to leave only the issue of securing a super-majority in the Federal Council, a formidable task in itself as the Länder are concerned about further restrictions on their already very limited spending powers.

Then, things got messy: the Left and a dissident MP declared that they would challenge the two treaties in the Federal Constitutional Court. The court in turn asked the Federal President not to sign the ratification bills into law for the time being so that they would have enough time to deliberate (once the treaties are ratified, a ruling by the FCC would be quite pointless). While this is not totally uncommon, the court held a press conference to make the public aware of the issue. It does not get much more uncommon in Germany. The president, who allegedly had been lobbied by the government to ratify the treaties before July was then forced to publicly declare that he would heed that request.

Like the content and the context of the bailout packages, all this is very unusual. Today’s events do not yet a constitute a constitutional crisis. But they do provide even more evidence  that we are living in very interesting times.

Germany and the European Crisis: Confusion and Delay 1

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