Germany's Federal Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, must have gotten cut-resistant foam around his open mouth after "Chief Justice" of Germany's "Supreme Court", the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) in Karlsruhe, Court President Andreas Vosskuhle, had announced that it will take up to three months for the court to get to a conclusion on a swift and temporary injunction on the ESM - Fiscal Pact bill which has been pocketed by Federal President, Joachim Gauck, upon court's request.
The FCC will make a decision on the injunction by making a summarized check on the constitutionality of the bill which is also part of multilateral treaty under the framework of the EU as "supra-national body". The review on constitutionality will be based on the "Basic Law" (the German Constitution) with the articles on EU-clauses embedded there.
For the justices, one crucial aspect will be the democracy definition of the EU itself, is it a still under-developed body of or for a future federal state, or isn't it a "Commonwealth of Indespendent States", a treaty community with a "petty" parliament without real decision-making abilities, esp. in terms of budgets.
Enabling a body that is not a genuine representation of the EU citizens from the respective member states, seen from the bottom to top democracy principle, would send shockwaves to the pillars of parliamentary budget rights, a fundamental tenet in all true democracies.
Imagine a "North American Union" of USA, Canada and Mexico with a common currency - NA$ - and Congress would enable a directorate of the three North American Presidents to solely decide about a respective bail-out fund and fiscal stability conditions in this region - wouldn't the genuine budget rights of the U.S. federal states be at stake as well? Then, the U.S. Supreme Court would also be in charge to interfere if the states questioned the constitutionality, right?
On what basis would the U.S. justices decide? Of course, on the principles of the Constitution of the United States - here in Germany in real and not fictitious terms, the review under same conditions is taking place at the FCC in Karlsruhe.
Well, Merkel, Schaeuble and a lot of EU-enthusiasts intrinsically question the FCC responsibility on that issue because "EU-regulations" have already penetrated the 'national parliamentary soil' and set roots in daily policy-making.
If they regard this as a power-struggle with the judicative and as FCC's bias in terms of safe-guarding the courts constitutional rights, they should rather convince the Federal President to pull the bill out of the desk and sign it into law, regardless what the FCC is checking and finding out in the meantime.
But, Merkel et al. hopefully won't risk that. Getting a bloody nose and kick in the butt retroactively by a court's injunction and thus resetting to prior state would be shameful for her and even more devastating to the reputation of all parties involved, except the Leftists who are trying to bring down this bill.
So, dear Mr. Federal Minister Joachim Schaeuble, you should rather keep a stiff upper lip and your mouth shut - and let the "Supreme Court" do its job.
If the FCC tears down your "hot needle - quick fixing" ESM / Fiscal Pact "Budget Rights Disabling Act", you will definitely know why, first by the summary from the injunction in quite some three months and then by thorough judgment after a year or two.
