Karlsruhe Court

German Constitutional Court (Photo: www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/german-court-uph..)

The Constitutional Court in Germany, asked to examine the compatibility of the Treaty of Maastricht with German law in 1993, came to a remarkably critical verdict.

• It stated that the German parliament should finally decide on the abolition of the D-Mark even if this was a part of Germany’s obligations under the Treaty.
• It said that - to respect of the fundamental principle of democracy - it was ultimately up to the German Parliament, the Bundestag, to decide whether the EU respected the proper borderlines between the EU and its component nation states.

The Court also characterised the EU as an association of states, a “Staatenbund”, and not a federalist state, a “Bundesstaat”, like Germany itself.