German Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling on the ESM
German Constitutional Court backs eurozone’s ESM bailout fund
The long awaited ruling of the German Federal Constitutional Court on the constitutional validity of the eurozone’s new permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), was issued on September 12th and resulted in a conditional “yes” for the ESM and the Fiscal Compact. As you can read in the press release and in the English extract of the decision:
- the provision under Article 8 paragraph 5 sentence 1 of the Treaty establishing the European Stability Mechanism limits the amount of all payment obligations arising to the Federal Republic of Germany from this Treaty to the amount stipulated in Annex II to the Treaty in the sense that no provision of this Treaty may be interpreted in a way that establishes higher payment obligations for the Federal Republic of Germany without the agreement of the German representative;
- the provisions under Article 32 paragraph 5, Article 34 and Article 35 paragraph 1 of the Treaty establishing the European Stability Mechanism do not stand in the way of the comprehensive information of the Bundestag and of the Bundesrat.
The growing importance of the German Federal Constitutional Court in the European arena is reflected as well in the many books published on the case law and the functioning of the court. The EUI Library’s holdings of legal books on the German Court are in various languages and go back to the 1970s. The publication of the third edition of Donald Kommers’ treatise “The Constitutional Jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of Germany” is expected in November, and coedited with Russell A. Miller. The Library has ordered a copy of this book.