Europeanization processes are often perceived as a threat. Because it is hard to grasp what is specifically "European" in the transformation process of the state, the only way out often seems to be to fall back on the state. The Lisbon ruling of the German Constitutional Court is a case in point, reading like a textbook on the general theory of state. To be sure, the State of the Grundgesetz is, for the first time, attested as being friendly towards European Law, and the Court opens the state towards the European challenges and describes it as a member state – but at the same time it imposes clear limits on the surrendering of sovereignty, perceiving it as a nation state. There is not much to be said against the notion that integration has to be democratically accountable. However, it remains to be seen whether the new identity control under the "eternity clause" of Art. 79 para 3 Grundgesetz will result in a more responsible approach to European law. The state will not be absorbed by Europe – that is the message relayed by the Federal Constitutional Court, which in the particularist perspective seems to say goodbye to the concept of open statehood. In this case, however, it should also abstain from "thinking Europe" simply in terms of the state |
No. 124/2010
Claudio Franzius
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