The Future of the Eurozone and the Role of the German Federal Constitutional Court

Summary:

This article discusses the role of the German Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG), in relation to European Union (EU) integration.

To provide context the article first discusses the BVerfG judgement on the Treaty of Lisbon. Consequently, it discusses the EFSF (European Financial Stability Facility) judgement by the BVerfG. The article argues that necessary reforms towards a deepened and increased European shaped economic, financial and budgetary policy, paraphrased by the term ‘fiscal union’, could possibly reach constitutional limits. In its EFSF judgment, the German Federal Constitutional Court followed the line of its Lisbon judgment according to which certain government tasks were determined as being part of the ‘constitutional identity’.