Ruling Shows Court's Weakness in EU Matters

by Thomas Darnstädt

Spiegel
September 12, 2012

The ruling on Wednesday by the Federal Constitutional Court on the euro bailout fund makes one thing very clear: The Karlsruhe-based institution will not stop European integration because it can't. The justices have created expectations among the people that they are no longer able to fulfill.

Never before has there been this much drama at Germany's Federal Constitutional Court. One of the longest-serving police guards working there confided to a radio reporter that there has never been anything like this at the highest court in the land. The scene was thronged with journalists, satellite dishes, broadcast vans, cables and floodlights: The entire world had its eyes turned to this courthouse, a converted barrack on the edge of this western German city. All the fanfare was directed at one highly anticipated event: Eight judges, three of them professors, were about to publicly declare whether they intended to block efforts to resolve the euro debt crisis.

So, what happened? Just what everyone expected: The European Union will not be stopped in its tracks. Germany can now ratify the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the permanent euro bailout fund, and the fiscal pact aimed at bringing economic governance to countries in the euro zone -- albeit with a few conditions. What's more, court President Andreas Vosskuhle repeated his usual warning that euro bailout packages cannot come at the cost of a loss of power for the Bundestag, Germany's federal parliament. Everyone has now relaxed, and even the German DAX index of blue chip companies is climbing.

But that's not all that happened. Never before has it been so clear that the best days of the Karlsruhe court are already behind it. All the pomp and circumstance of the eight judges in their red robes has grown hollow. The panel regularly and solemnly convenes in its massive courtroom to rule on what the relationship between the European Union and the democracy guaranteed in Germany's constitution should be. However, everyone sitting in the courtroom knows that there is precious little democracy when it comes to the current crisis in Europe.

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