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The European Union as An Association of Sovereign States: Karlsruhe's Ruling on the Treaty of Lisbon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Frank Schorkopf

Extract

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Sixty years after the promulgation of the German constitution, which from the beginning was distinguished by its “visionary openness towards Europe,” the German Federal Constitutional Court reassessed the historic process of European integration. It reviewed the compatibility of the legal foundations of the European Union with the German Basic Law and provided a thorough overview. The Treaty of Lisbon and its sweeping, integrating reform of the European Union is compatible with the Basic Law, the Court's Second Senate ruled, so long as it is applied within the framework outlined by the Federal Constitutional Court. However, the Court found that the German implementation law is not consistent with the Basic Law. Accordingly, the Court made clear that Germany can continue with the ratification of the treaty only after introducing a new implementation law. The 147-page decision could be summarised in the following way: The European Union is an association of sovereign states and, hence, a secondary political area.

Type
Special Section: The Federal Constitutional Court's Lisbon Case
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 8 , 01 August 2009 , pp. 1219 - 1240
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

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