Das PSPP-Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts: Umfang der Übertragung von Souveränität und Überprüfung von Ermessensgebrauch

In its judgment of 5 May 2020, the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) has held that the Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) of the European Central Bank (ECB), which started in 2015, and the relevant decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) of 11 December 2018, holding that the programme is compatible with European Union (EU) law, are ultra vires acts. Indeed, this decision is based on a French understanding of discretion which has previously been adopted in the European Treaties and according to which discretion is controlled only for undue, illegal influence. Today, the Treaties have adopted a review of discretion under the aspects of suitability, necessity, and appropriateness. Moreover, criticism at the decision of the FCC neglects that the accession to and the membership in the EU have to observe the thresholds of the respective national constitution, as its violation is not and may not be expected by the Union or any other Member State. Ultra vires acts of the Union, which remain uncorrected by the Union itself, are subject to disapproval and rejection by the constitutional court of any Member State.

(Un)fit for 55! Ohne eine verschärfte Governance-Verordnung sind die Klimaziele 2030 nicht zu erreichen

The European Commission's “Fit for 55” package of July 2021 provides for a significant increase in renewable energy and energy efficiency targets in the European Union (EU). However, the EU’s competences in the energy sector are severely limited and subject to sovereignty. Already in 2018, the EU adopted a Governance Regulation that provides for a hardening of the otherwise only soft governance in the areas of renewable energies and energy efficiency due to the lack of European competences. It is intended to ensure that the Commission's recommendations for improving national energy and climate plans are implemented by the member states. An analysis of the quality of implementation of these recommendations now shows that this has a positive effect in areas with harder soft governance but still needs improvement. Increasing the targets of regulatory action cannot be successful without revising the Governance Regulation and hardening soft governance along with it. Otherwise, the EU is not fit for its 55 percent target in 2030.

Aktuelle Entwicklungen in der EU-Sozialpolitik: effizientere Entscheidungsfindung durch Mehrheitsentscheidungen und differenzierte Integration?

Design and adoption of common social policy is conditional. Limited competencies, institutional and organizational heterogeneity among member states, and ideological-programmatic majorities in the institutions of the European Union (EU) have led to far fewer new legal instruments in recent decades. One of the key challenges is the unanimity requirement in the Council, enshrined in the Treaties in areas of great member state sovereignty. In 2019 the Commission proposed to allow a transition to qualified majority voting. This paper discusses what the transition entails in legal and procedural terms and highlights three key advantages it holds. To this aim it provides an overview of the policy areas and instruments that the Commission would like to transfer to qualified majority voting. It outlines how the potential that majority voting offers for EU social policy could be exploited better with more ambitious initiatives and discusses differentiated integration as an alternative.

Wie die EU den Weg aus der „Pandemie-Krise“ findet: Lehren aus der Krisenpolitik nach 2008

The European Union (EU) invests huge resources in overcoming the pandemic crisis and does so as a learning system: The Union learned lessons from the previous, the financial, economic and state debt crisis after 2008, in many ways. The EU assumes now definitely the role of an active player in the economy, leaving behind the neoliberal doctrine; she suspends the restrictive budgetary policy, which prevented already in 2008 and the following years adequate solutions; she reshaped the control over its financial aid programmes so that harsh conflict between member states („troika“) are mitigated; the Union further refined the public private partnership mechanisms established unter the aegis of the European Investment Bank (EIB); the European Central Bank (ECB) assumes now a role still disputed after 2008; the flexibility clauses of the Lisbon Treaty, just put into force after 2008, are now extensively applied; and, more than anything else, the Union aims at a change of paradigm by putting the NextGenerationEU programme at the service of sustainable development (enshrined in the Green Deal).

Auf ein Neues? Erfolgsfaktoren für die Konferenz zur Zukunft Europas

In this article, the author contrasts the experience of the Convention on the Future of Europe 2002-2003 with the mandate for the Conference on the Future of Europe which commenced on May 9, 2021. He criticises that the Conference is deprived of fundamental structural elements that were success factors for the Convention: a clear mandate, a tight leadership, and the right to self-organise. Nevertheless, the author is convinced that the Conference still has every chance of giving the European Union a forward-looking impetus for reform. He derives five recommendations for the future work of the Conference. In particular, it must be set up considering the desired outcome, by defining a product that is to be established, and directing the work toward its creation. If the Conference serves solely as a sounding board for diffuse citizen concerns, its potential cannot be fully exploited.

Ein ökonomisches Happy End aus geostrategischen Gründen? Erfolgsaussichten für den Freihandel zwischen der Europäischen Union und Indien

The talks that have been resumed for reaching a free trade agreement between the European Union and India have a good chance for success. Both partners, especially India, have to achieve new economic dynamics in order to be able to face the challenge posed by China. This decisive reason is supported by Brexit, the pandemic and the climate crisis, which also spark an exogenous, geostrategic dynamic that gives new impetus to the paralyzed liberal paradigm of free trade. Taken together, it is likely that exogenous geostrategic factors realign the endogenous economic factors and thus promote a positive outcome despite the ongoing weakness of liberal free trade ideas.

Die Digitalisierungsstrategie der Europäischen Union – Meilensteine und Handlungsfelder zwischen digitaler Souveränität und grüner Transformation

Digital transformation has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, it affects almost all areas of social and economic life. As a cross-cutting issue and solution to specific challenges, it is also increasingly the subject of initiatives at EU level. Since 2015, the EU has developed a comprehensive digital agenda that involves various areas, ranging from the single market to foreign and security policy. The paper traces the dynamic development on the basis of strategy documents and policy guidelines in three phases with a focus on 2020 and 2021. It takes stock of the EU’s overarching strategy towards digitalisation by examining what the EU understands by it, what its goals are, and what role it draws for itself in shaping the digital transformation. The study shows that the EU tries to grasp digitalisation in a substantial number of policy-specific strategies and guidelines, using mainly four patterns of interpretation - partly in parallel - which differ in terms of geopolitical, environmental, socio-political and economic policy framing.

Frankreich und die Türkei – Machtpoker ohne Sieger

In the summer of 2020, Franco-Turkish relations deteriorated dramatically. Since then, Paris has accused Ankara of deliberately influencing the Turkish diaspora in France in order to undermine the values of the French Republic. In terms of foreign policy, France criticizes Turkey for encircling the European Union (EU) and its member states with the consequence of deliberately acting against their interests. Neither the ideological nor the geopolitical power poker of the two states has produced a winner. The Franco-Turkish rivalries offer the EU the opportunity to undertake a comprehensive reorientation of its Turkey policy. The expansion of its conditionality to include domestic political issues is just as important as an improved division of roles and work in its institutions and the geopolitical view of the respective neighbourhood.

Wendepunkt Corona-Krise? Deutsche Präferenzen zur europäischen Integration staatlicher Kerngewalten seit Maastricht

Did the Covid-19 crisis prompt a turn in German EU policy? Investigating the long-term development of German preferences on the European integration of core state powers, we find striking continuity. German governments persistently seek to minimise their costs from and maximise their control over integration. Consequently, they back supranational capacity-building primarily as a last resort in existential systemic crises. The Corona recovery fund, which is temporary and placed under intergovernmental control, is in line with this general long-term preference and does little to alleviate the structural flaws of the Euro area.