20 June 2012

Federal Constitutional Court hands down ruling on 19 June 2012 concerning Bundestag consultation over ESM and Euro Plus Pact

The German Government welcomes the legal certainty that has been established regarding the Government’s obligations to provide information to the Bundestag in matters relating to the EU. The Court has for the first time clearly formulated the requirements for providing information to the Bundestag in terms of form, procedure, and timing.

The ruling has no impact on euro agreements that have already been taken. The Government has already been informing the Bundestag about the progress of ongoing European projects via the relevant Bundestag committees. The Court has clarified that intergovernmental treaties – and therefore the ESM and the Euro Plus Pact on the improved coordination of national economic policies, both set up by such treaties – are EU matters in which parliament has a right to participate.

The Government will implement the Court requirements when providing the Bundestag with information in future and it will carefully review the extent to which legal rules on the Bundestag’s rights to receive information need to be adjusted in light of today’s decision. The Government’s preliminary view is that the Bundestag was, however, provided with comprehensive information at the earliest possible time where the current consultative process on legislation to ratify the Fiscal Compact is concerned. Far-reaching participation rights for the Bundestag will also be settled in new legislation on the ESM.

The Court has also clearly set out the bounds of the obligations to provide information. These limits arise from the separation of powers as set out in Germany’s constitution. The Government accordingly has its own core area of executive responsibility that encompasses a field in which it can exercise its initiative, deliberate and take action without being subject to any obligations to inform parliament. Parliament thus has no entitlement to receive information as long as the Government’s internal decision-making process is ongoing.

Press release

© Bundesfinanzministerium