National Constitutionalism, Openness to International Law, and the Pragmatic Limits of European Integration—European Law in the German Constitutional Court from EEC to the PJCC†

Abstract

Abstract The basic principle for the Bundesverfassungsgericht (German Federal Constitutional Court) has been that the international delegation of limited and revocable powers generally has been accepted as long as the organizations to which powers are delegated also provide adequate protection of individual rights. The principle that delegation is to be functional was another way to create safeguards concerning the extent to which powers were delegated. That principle has been applied consistently with regard to delegations to the European Community (EC), although the definition of powers that are limited and revocable has been given an ever-wider interpretation over time. When considering how the Constitutional Court has exercised constitutional control over delegations to international organizations, it also is important to note that, in relation to the EC and the European Union (EU), it has controlled a process of constitutionalization at the level of European integration. This chapter compares that development with how the Constitutional Court has conceptualized the national constitutional control of developments in the second and third pillars of the EU and European integration more generally. In that context, it also provides a short background outlining how the Constitutional Court has treated problems of European integration. It argues that the development of supranational integration sheds new light on some of the central aspects of theories of judicial control of political decision-making.