Maastricht judgment
With the Maastricht judgment of October 12, 1993, the German Federal Constitutional Court confirmed the compatibility of the EU Treaty of Maastricht with the German Basic Law . It decided that the relocation of certain competences to the European Union , which the complainants complained about - especially with the introduction of economic and monetary union - did not violate the principle of democracy guaranteed by the Basic Law ( Art. 20 (1) and (2 ) GG ) and with it no significant reduction in the protection of fundamental rights is associated.
background
With the Treaty of Maastricht , which was signed on February 7th, 1992, the European Union was founded, which should overarch the European Communities that had existed up to then . In addition, the treaty provided for the transfer of certain national sovereignty rights to the European level. This was particularly true of monetary policy , as the Maastricht Treaty established the European Economic and Monetary Union (which later led to the introduction of the euro ).
In Germany, the EU treaty was ratified by the Bundestag on December 2, 1992 . In addition, the Bundestag and Bundesrat passed an amendment to the Basic Law on December 21, 1992 , through which Art. 23 GG in particular was revised. It now said u. a .:
“In order to achieve a united Europe, the Federal Republic of Germany is involved in the development of the European Union, which is committed to democratic, constitutional, social and federal principles and the principle of subsidiarity and which guarantees fundamental rights protection that is essentially comparable to this Basic Law. The federal government can transfer sovereign rights by law with the consent of the Bundesrat. "
Various people ( Manfred Brunner , represented by Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider , as well as a group of other complainants, represented by Hans-Christian Ströbele and Ulrich K. Preuss ) then lodged constitutional complaints before the Federal Constitutional Court against the ratification law and the constitutional amendment . The complainants alleged, among other things, that the transfer of sovereign rights to the supranational European Union deprived the German Bundestag of power and thus undermined the principle of democracy. In addition, the relocation of certain competencies would violate German fundamental rights, since decisions on issues relevant to fundamental rights are now being made at European, not German level. The amendment of Article 23 of the Basic Law, which legitimizes the EU Treaty, is therefore itself contrary to the Basic Law, since it violates essential, unchangeable constitutional principles.
The judgment
The Federal Constitutional Court rejected the constitutional complaints or rejected them. The court only considered the constitutional complaint of a complainant to be admissible insofar as it was directed against the German Act of Consent to the Maastricht Treaty and alleged a violation of the rights under Article 38 of the Basic Law.
Protection of fundamental rights
Based on its Solange II ruling, the Federal Constitutional Court repeated that adequate protection of fundamental rights was guaranteed at European level, which would not be curtailed by the fact that further powers were now transferred to the EU. The court confirmed that the fundamental rights standards guaranteed in the Basic Law also apply to EU Community law and that it therefore reserves the right to make a final decision. Normally, however, the European Court of Justice is responsible for compliance with the protection of fundamental rights in Community law:
"However, the Federal Constitutional Court exercises its jurisdiction over the applicability of derived Community law in Germany in a" cooperation relationship "with the European Court of Justice, in which the European Court of Justice guarantees the protection of fundamental rights in each individual case for the entire area of the European Communities, the Federal Constitutional Court therefore general guarantee of the indispensable basic rights standards. "
Democracy principle
The Federal Constitutional Court ruled that participation in a supranational union does not fundamentally violate the principle of democracy, as long as democratic principles are maintained within the union itself. In the decisive sentence of the judgment, the Federal Constitutional Court introduced the term union of states to denote the special form of the European Union, which on the one hand has sovereign rights and is therefore not a pure federation of states , but on the other hand is not based on a uniformly constituted nation and therefore also cannot be considered a state :
“The principle of democracy does not prevent the Federal Republic of Germany from becoming a member of a - supranationally organized - intergovernmental community. However, the prerequisite for membership is that legitimation and influence emanating from the people are also secured within an association of states. "
With regard to the alleged democratic deficit of the European Union , the Constitutional Court stressed the right of national parliaments and the European Parliament to have a say .
“In the confederation of states of the European Union, democratic legitimation is necessary through the feedback of the actions of European organs to the parliaments of the member states; Added to this - increasingly as the European nations grow together - within the institutional structure of the European Union, the mediation of democratic legitimation through the European Parliament elected by the citizens of the member states. Already in the current phase of development, the legitimation by the European Parliament has a supporting function that could be reinforced if it were elected according to an electoral law that is consistent in all member states in accordance with Article 138 (3) of the EC Treaty and its influence on politics and Regulation of the European Communities is growing. It is crucial that the democratic foundations of the Union are developed in step with integration and that a living democracy is maintained in the member states as integration continues. "
However, a transfer of competences to the EU should continue to be limited to certain areas and only be carried out with the express authorization of the German legislature; the EU cannot unilaterally extend its competences beyond the text of the EU treaty. The Federal Constitutional Court therefore reserves the right to examine in individual cases whether future legal acts by EU organs go beyond the sovereign rights granted in the treaty ( ultra vires control). However, the treaty itself does not grant the European institutions such competence , but continues to guarantee the empowerment of the national parliaments. It therefore does not violate the principle of democracy.
Finally, the last sentence of the judgment once again emphasizes the need to strengthen democracy at EU level in the course of progressive integration (e.g. through further powers for the European Parliament) and at the same time to preserve the democratic principles in the individual member states:
"It is therefore crucial, both from a contractual and constitutional point of view, that the democratic foundations of the Union are developed in step with integration and that a living democracy is maintained in the member states as integration continues."
literature
- Brun-Otto Bryde : The Maastricht judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court. Consequences for the further development of European integration; Revised version of a lecture given on November 9, 1993 in the graduate school "Deepening European Integration", Graduiertenkolleg Deepening European Integration, Tübingen 1993, ISBN 3-9803328-2-9 .
- Franz C. Mayer: Exceeding competence and final decision. The Maastricht judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court and the final ruling on ultra vires files in multilevel systems; a comparative legal analysis of conflicts between courts using the example of the EU and the USA , Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-46702-4 .
- Ingo Winkelmann (ed.): The Maastricht judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court of October 12, 1993. Documentation of the procedure with introduction , Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-08116-1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ BVerfG. Judgment of October 12, 1993, Az. 2 BvR 2134, 2159/92, BVerfGE 89, 155
