Challenge to constitutionality of the EU's permanent bailout scheme has dealt a blow to hopes of its swift ratification
The German government was on tenterhooks on Tuesday as the country's most powerful court opened a hearing challenging the constitutionality of the EU's permanent bailout scheme which could wreck the entire plan to save the euro.
Should the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe decide for the 12,000 citizens who have brought the case under the collective banner "More Democracy", it could have the drastic effect of preventing Germany from joining the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).
The court hearing has dealt a blow to chancellor Angela Merkel's hopes of getting the ESM and the accompanying fiscal pact ratified and implemented fast.
The finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, warned the court of "serious consequences" were it to stop or slow down the delayed treaties.
"A considerable postponement of the ESM, which was foreseen for July this year, could cause considerable further uncertainty on markets beyond Germany and a substantial loss of trust in the eurozone's ability to make necessary decisions in an appropriate timeframe," Schäuble told the court's eight-judge panel who were clad in their trademark red gowns and hats.
If the Constitutional Court (BVG), which, after the US supreme court, is the most powerful judicial body in the world, rules that government legislation is unconstitutional it cannot become law. Seen as the defender of Germany's Basic Law, or constitution, the BVG has played a key role in shaping the country's democracy since the founding of the federal republic after the second world war when it was established to stop Germany returning to a dictatorship. But it is rarely so intensely under the spotlight as now.
The main petition was delivered to the court by former justice minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin. A group of professors, as well as politicians from the right and far-left, also submitted petitions.
Several demonstrators gathered in front of the courthouse and acted out a mock burial of the constitution, to illustrate their warning that the ESM would gravely undermine German sovereignty by passing too much power from the German government to European institutions. At the heart of the decision is also the future of European integration and just how much further it can go.
A cardboard tombstone surrounded by candles and flowers carried the words: "Here rests in peace the constitution of the German republic, born May 23, 1949, died 29 June 2012. The citizens mourn."
The BVG's presiding judge, Andreas Vosskuhle, said the court would not look to dissect the constitutionality of the ESM and fiscal pact, but would focus on deciding whether the president, Joachim Gauck, should delay signing it into law allowing more time for it to be examined in detail. "In politics unusual situations and crises often require unusual measures," he said, adding that "Europe needs democratic constitutional states just as democratic constitutional states need Europe".
Those giving evidence to the court over the next days are expected to include the head of Germany's central bank, Jens Weidmann, as well as leading economists and rebel members of Merkel's own coalition, other politicians and members of the public.
Merkel has expressed her impatience with the court, reportedly saying at a private meeting of her Christian Democrats that it was "pushing her limits".
During its history the court has often been accused of being aloof from political life, an impression intensified by its geographical position in south-west Germany, deliberately far away from other federal institutions. But supporters say that separateness is a central point of its existence. In 2009 it delayed the Lisbon Treaty which updated the European Union's constitution. But it has not yet rejected as unlawful any of the several bailouts for Greece or other countries.
As politicians voiced their fears that the BVG risked jeopardising Europe's future, the justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, warned her colleagues against interfering with its work. "Government and politicians should absolutely keep out of this," she said. "The Constitutional Court doesn't need any advice … the judges know the significance their decision will have for the economy," she said.
The court is expected to reach a decision by the end of the month, but experts urged the court to speed up its ruling, arguing that anything beyond two weeks would raise doubts about Europe's ability to tackle the crisis.
The ESM was meant to start working in July but like the fiscal pact, which is due to come into effect in 2013, can only start operating once it has been ratified by most states.
President Gauck, who has said he is "glad that this action is being taken", has chided the government for failing to explain the debt crisis measures to ordinary Germans.
"Sometimes it's tiresome to explain what it's all about, and sometimes the energy is lacking to tell the population openly what is going on," he said in a television interview on Sunday.
The relationship between ruling politicians and the BVG has never been smooth. "These frictions are more or less anchored in the Basic Law," wrote the daily Die Welt. "As the government and members of the Bundestag know, anything they try to turn into law can be annulled at a single stroke of the BVG's feather quill."
In the 1970s when the court was examining the eastern bloc policies of chancellor Willy Brandt a leading member of Brandt's Social Democrats, Herbert Wehner, was famously quoted as saying: "We're not going to let those arseholes in Karlsruhe ruin our politics."
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