The Euro Crisis and the Judicialization of Euro-Politics

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 5 discusses the role of the German Federal Constitutional Court (GFCC) in the euro crisis. In 2009, the GFCC returned to the core tenets of its Maastricht judgment with its ruling on the Lisbon Treaty, which it further developed in its case law on the euro crisis. The chapter discusses this case law and the requirement that the German parliament must retain control over essential budgetary decisions. The chapter demonstrates how, in particular, this constitutional limitation constrained legitimate political disagreement over the future of the monetary union. The GFCC’s case law is at odds with the view that budgetary powers should be transferred to the EU in order to address the monetary union’s design faults and ensure democratic control over economic policy. The GFFC’s case law instead reinforced a politics in which fiscal discipline is of overriding importance.