'Federal Constitutional Court to the ECB': Another Blow to the European Union Post-Brexit? Review of a Controversial Decision and Its Implications for the Eurozone and the Future of the European Union

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kane Abry-Diaw De Baye
IG ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-234
Author(s):  
Peter-Christian Müller-Graff

This article scrutinizes the impact of the widely criticized PSPP-judgement of the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) on the Union´s legal order. It shows that the European Commission´s opening of an infringement procedure was inevitable due to the FCC´s disregard of the rules of the preliminary reference procedure, denies the necessity of a modification of the Union´s judicial architecture and develops recommendations for the future loyal cooperation between the FCC and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in handling such disputes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 192 ◽  
pp. 451-511

451Economics, trade and finance — European Monetary Union — Fiscal sovereignty — Public debt — Monetary policy — Economic policy — European Union — Asset purchase programme — Quantitative easing — Central banks — European Central Bank — European System of Central Banks — BundesbankTreaties — Treaty-making powers — Constitutional limitations on treaty-making powers — Transfers of powers by States to intergovernmental and other transnational authorities — Whether compatible with constitutional prerogatives of national parliament — Overall budgetary responsibility — Basic Law of GermanyInternational organizations — European Union — Powers — Member States as masters of the treaties — Principle of conferral — Whether Union having competence to determine or extend its own powers — Principle of subsidiarity — Court of Justice of the European UnionRelationship of international law and municipal law — European Union law — Interpretation — Application — Judgment of Court of Justice of the European Union — Weiss — Principle of proportionality — Whether application of EU law having absolute primacy — Whether German Federal Constitutional Court having absolute duty to follow judgment of Court of Justice of the European Union — Compatibility with Basic Law of Federal Republic of Germany — Openness of German Basic Law to European integration — Whether purchase programme ultra vires — Whether ultra vires acts applicable in Germany — Whether having binding effect in relation to German constitutional organsJurisdiction — European Union institutions — Whether jurisdiction of German Federal Constitutional Court extending to Court of Justice of the European Union and European Central Bank — Whether acts of EU institutions subject to national constitutional review — Ultra vires review — Review of core identity of national constitution — Whether application of EU law having absolute primacy — Whether absolute duty to follow judgment of Court of Justice of the European Union — The law of Germany


2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 399-418
Author(s):  
Elisabetta Lanza

In the 2009 judgment dealing with the Treaty of Lisbon, the German Federal Constitutional Court urges to modify a domestic statute in order to guarantee the rights of the internal rule-making power and also provides a reasoning on the role of the European Union (EU) as an international organization, the principle of sovereignty and the relations between European Institutions and Bodies and the EU Member States. According to the German Court the Treaty of Lisbon does not transform the European Union into a Federal State (Staatsverband), but into a Confederation of States (Staatenverbund). In spite of the 1993 landmark judgment, the so-called “Maastricht Urteil”, the Court steps forward and focuses also the subject-matters that necessarily have to pertain to the Member States jurisdiction, the so-called “domain reserve”. The German Federal Constitutional Court decision on the Lisbon Treaty arouses the reflection on the core of State sovereignty and on the boundaries of the EU legal system and focuses on the force of the right to vote of every citizen, the basis of democracy.Furthermore, the decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court highlights the well-known issue of the EU's identity and the balancing between EU democracy and Member State sovereignty. In the light of the German Constitutional Court statements, the present work aims to understand which could be actually the EU's identity and how could be approached “democratic deficit” of the EU.


2004 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Anthony Arnull

The purpose of this article is to consider the effect of the draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe on the European Court of Justice (ECJ). At the time of writing, the future of the draft Constitution is somewhat uncertain. Having been finalised by the Convention on the Future of Europe in the summer of 2003 and submitted to the then President of the European Council, it formed the basis for discussion at an intergovernmental conference (IGC) which opened in October 2003. Hopes that the text might be finalised by the end of the year were dashed when a meeting of the IGC in Brussels in December 2003 ended prematurely amid disagreement over the weighting of votes in the Council. However, it seems likely that a treaty equipping the European Union with a Constitution based on the Convention’s draft will in due course be adopted and that the provisions of the draft dealing with the ECJ will not be changed significantly. Even if either assumption proves misplaced, those provisions will remain of interest as reflecting one view of the position the ECJ might occupy in a constitutional order of the Union.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Degenhart ◽  
Hans-Detlef Horn ◽  
Dietrich Murswiek ◽  
Markus C. Kerber

Since 2015, the European Central Bank (ECB) has been purchasing, among other assets, primarily government bonds of the euro zone countries and including them in its balance sheet on a permanent basis (Public Sector Purchase Programme - PSPP). Does the ECB thereby engage in prohibited monetary public financing? Does it exceed its monetary policy competences? Does it cause incalculable liability risks for the German federal budget? Does this all in all constitute an infringement of the legal and democratic order of the European Union? The ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court of 5 May 2020 is therefore of historical significance. By making it clear that the ECB's independence does not justify "ultra vires acts", it marks - also vis-à-vis the Court of Justice of the European Union - the limits which the Basic Law has set for European Union Law. The volume brings together the main procedural documents of the four constitutional complaints, which have thus been partially granted.


2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armin Steinbach

The German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has found that there are no constitutional objections against the Lisbon Treaty. At the same time, the FCC imposed limitations to future integration by identifying a number of state functions that are non-amenable to integration and which have to be retained at the national level. This article examines the scope and content of these core competencies. It also discusses to what extent the criteria used by the FCC for the determination of core competencies might reflect a European-wide standard for the determination of limits to the transfer of competencies to the European Union. The article concludes that the judgment clarifies the limitations of the transfer of competencies, even though the criteria used by the FCC cannot claim to produce the set of inalienable sovereign powers that were recognized as such throughout the Union.


2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karsten Schneider

In the environment of ongoing endeavors to “rescue” the Euro, the Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) is meanwhile dealing with several constitutional complaints challenging matters that could be described as “the future of the German Bundesbank” and “the present and the past of the German Federal Government and the German Bundestag.” Or, to be more specific, the complainants currently challenge the prospective participation of the German Bundesbank in possible future implementations of the so called “OMT Framework” of 6 September 2012. They also argue that the German Federal Government and the German Bundestag “failed to act” regarding this OMT framework.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Bernadette Sangmeister

<p>On 14 January 2014, for the first time in its history, the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) decided to refer a decision to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). This referral, which concerned the issue of the legality of the European Central Bank’s bond-buying practices, must be seen as “historic” with regard to European integration and the relationship between European Union law and German constitutional law, forming part of important decisions of the FCC in this field since its first euro-critical judgment, Solange I, 40 years ago. Considering the high influence the German Federal Constitutional Court has had on the process of European integration, this paper aims at identifying and critiquing the lines of argumentation developed by the FCC in recent years in the field of European integration and decision-making before and after the Lisbon judgment in 2009, paying particular attention to the currently suspended OMT Decision proceedings in order to answer the question if a shift in the jurisprudence of the FCC from a euro-sceptical to a euro-phile approach has taken place.</p>


2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 1551-1560
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Martinico

Recently the GermanBundesverfassungsgericht(Federal Constitutional Court) knocked on the European Union's door with its impressive judgment on the Lisbon Treaty, recalling all the weight of the German scholarship tradition steeped in the German dogmatic flavor: the attention to the history of sovereignty and the attempt to catch all the European Union constitutional system's life revealed the systemic approach peculiar to the German dogmatic scholarship.


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