The German Constitutional Court has declared the German acceptance of the Lisbon Treaty unconstitutional.
Last week’s ruling by the German Constitutional Court, coupled with demands by one conservative party for changes to the constitution, may not only jeopardize Berlin’s schedule for the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. The Karlsruhe ruling also threatens future steps toward European integration.
When the parliamentary group of the Christian Social Union (CSU) — the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats — met in Berlin last Thursday, they had a hero to celebrate. “You have saved our honor,” said CSU representative Hans-Peter Friedrich to his party colleague and friend Peter Gauweiler.
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Now it’s official: The ratification by the overwhelming majority of theGerman parliament — including the CSU — was negligent. In essence,the court ruled that by passing the so-called “accompanying law” to theLisbon Treaty, which determines the rights of German parliament toparticipate in European legislation, the representatives hadrelinquished significant monitoring rights to Brussels. According tothe judges, this unconstitutionally subjects the people that theyrepresent to the whims of a bureaucracy that lacks sufficientdemocratic legitimacy.