Mit nüchternem Blick: Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts zur EZB-Politik
Es war auf Twitter gut zu beobachten, die pro-europäischen Ökonomen haben sofort zwei Dinge gesagt: Das Bundesverfassungsgericht versteht nichts von Wirtschaft und zudem wäre es eine Kompetenzüberschreitung, europäisches Recht – hier vertreten durch den EUGH – infrage zu stellen. Die EU sieht das ähnlich, fordern doch deutsche EU-Abgeordnete (!!!) ein Vertragsverletzungsverfahren gegen Deutschland. Allen voran Sven Giegold von den Grünen.
Ich finde es interessant, weil es noch mal verdeutlicht, mit was für einer Organisationsform wir es bei der EU zu tun haben und daraus abgeleitet, welch merkwürdiges Verständnis die Vertreter dieser Organisation von der Rechtsordnung haben, in der sie sich eigentlich bewegen sollten.
Ambroise Evans-Pritchard hat dies in einem ausgewogenen Artikel gut zusammengefasst. Vermutlich muss man schon nicht mehr im Klub sein, um so nüchtern darauf zu blicken:
- “(…) the EU institutional machine is making the same mistake with the German people that it made with the British people. (…) It is treating the legitimate sensitivities of a large net contributor with disdain and playing fast and loose with constitutional law. The European Court (ECJ) has acquired the habit of claiming powers that are not rooted in any Treaty text, advancing Monnet federalism by an odd mixture of bravado and stealth.” – bto: Damit sind wir beim Kern. Es werden Rechte angemaßt, die der EU gar nicht zustehen.
- “The EU assumed it could get away with this because the German policy class has been broadly complicit – up to a point – but Europe has now run into the unyielding resistance of the German constitutional court, the defender of the post-War Rechtsstaat, and the body that likes to think of itself as the ‚people’s court‘.” – bto: Das ist auch ein wichtiger Punkt. Die deutschen Politiker haben aktiv dabei mitgewirkt, die Rechte Deutschlands auf EU-Ebene nicht zu wahren.
- “The court ruled that the ECB had ‚manifestly‘ breached the principle of proportionality with bond purchases topping €2.2 trillion, and had strayed from the monetary realm into broad economic policy without legal authority. It said the ECJ’s rubber-stamp ruling in favour of limitless QE was capricious, ‚incomprehensible‘, and ultra vires. Whether or not the Verfassungsgericht is right about the technicalities of monetary policy is irrelevant in the larger story of Europe.” – bto: Denn es geht um die Frage, ob die EZB selbst über den gesetzten Rahmen hinausgehen darf und ob der EUGH einfach selbst entscheiden kann, was in seine Zuständigkeit fällt.
- “Brussels now seems determined to escalate. Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen – a German but all the more eager to prove herself European – reasserted the full, unbridled EU claim to legal supremacy, and vowed infringement proceedings against Germany.” – bto: Frau von der Leyen hat nur ein Interesse: ihr eigenes. Als Präsidentin von Macrons Gnaden weiß sie, was zu tun ist. Damit schadet sie sich und ihrem Team, aber eigentlich dem richtigen europäischen Projekt.
- “Brussels and the fraternity of EU-funded think tanks are outraged by the Karlsruhe challenge . But those now demanding that Germany bring its judges to heel are more or less the same people urging maximum sanctions against Poland and Hungary for doing exactly that – bringing their judges to heel. The German government can do no such thing.” – bto: so schön gesagt! Abhängige Gerichte sind nur ein Problem, wenn sie den EU-Interessen widersprechen und umgekehrt.
- “Edmund Stoiber, ex-premier of Bavaria, said the EU is no more than a confederation of states and the German court is entirely justified in checking abuses by EU bodies. He warned Mrs von der Leyen that the ruling must be respected and that she is entering perilous waters with her impetuous probe.” – bto: Und wir wissen, Herr Stoiber ist (ein guter) Jurist.
- “Markets have yet to grasp that this injunction also means that the Bundesbank may have to sell existing holdings. Arnaud Mares from Citigroup says investors have been strangely insouciant, as if the judgment were somehow ‚not binding‘ and could be wished away. ‚We disagree entirely with this benign interpretation,‘ he said. ‚The ruling represents a genuine threat to the stability of Europe and now requires an extraordinary feat of statesmanship – on a par with the Schuman Declaration in May 1950.‘ But of course, we now know that the Schuman text was actually drafted in Washington under intense US pressure at the start of the Cold War. There is no US administration today urging EU states to join forces.” – bto: Übrigens wäre mein Vorschlag, alte Staatsschulden in einem Schuldentilgungsfonds zu bündeln und bei der EZB abzuladen, genau die Lösung. Denn sie würde die Unabhängigkeit der Staaten respektieren, helfen und wäre fair.
- “While the ruling does not cover the latest €750bn of ‚pandemic bonds‘ launched in March, it does so implicitly because the new scheme breaches even more red lines. Pandemic QE lacks any of the constraints demanded for the prior bond purchases – the 33pc rule, the ‚capital key‘, and credit quality. It is open-ended and therefore in flagrant defiance of the court’s insistence on strict limits. (…) Roughly 40pc of the latest purchases are going on Italian bonds.” – bto: Da wir alle für die EZB haften, ist es eine Verschiebung von Vermögen in andere Staaten.
- “The ECB’s chief economist openly states that they are intended to lower risk spreads in ‚individual sovereign markets‘ at risk due to the ‚prospective scale of public debt issuance‘. It is an admission that QE has morphed into a fiscal rescue by the back door and that it trespasses on the tax-and-spend prerogatives of the German parliament, rooted in the Basic Law. The court says MPs in the Bundestag may not legally alienate these fiscal powers to any supra-national body even if they want to.” – bto: Dies alles unterstreicht, wie wenig unsere Regierung die Interessen zur Wohlstandssicherung hierzulande schützt.
- “Professor Adam Tooze from Columbia University says the German ruling is dismal monetary science. The judges have failed to come to terms with the changed nature of central banking in a zero-interest world. (…) But the court is nevertheless ‚right to detect a sleight of hand when the ECB justifies an entirely new set of policies‘ by citing its mandate of price stability. The judgment has ‚put a spotlight on the ECB charade.” – bto: Eine gute Kommentierung zur Argumentation von Tooze hat Herr Tischer zu meinem Podcast vom Sonntag auf bto publiziert.
- “German plaintiffs think the ECB is carrying out ‚redistributive Keynesianism in monetary disguise‘ and is an opaque technocratic agency, ‚arrogating to itself powers that properly belong to national parliaments, barreling down the slippery slope to a European superstate‘. This is self-evidently true.” – bto: Es ist wahr. Und es gehört offen angesprochen. Stattdessen versteckt sich die Bundesregierung hinter der EZB, weil sie sich scheut, den Bürgern die Wahrheit zu sagen.
- “The Commission’s attempt to compel German compliance is a gamble with nuclear stakes. It forces Berlin to take sides. The government must defend the Verfassungsgericht and the Grundgesetz, the Magna Carta of German democracy.” – bto: Ich bin gespannt, wie sie sich da durchmogeln, aber ich bin relativ sicher, die Politik wird diesen Konflikt nicht suchen.
- “It forces clarification of the fundamental ambiguity in the EU’s constitutional structure. Is the union a superstate like the US with a genuine supreme court, or is it essentially a treaty organisation of independent states? The German judges ruled categorically that it is the latter. They said the EU is not a ‚federal state‘ and that the sovereign nations remain ‚Masters of the Treaties‘. They stated in black and white that the German court is ‚not bound‘ by the ruling of the ECJ. Brussels may discover that if it compels a reluctant Germany to choose between these two incompatible versions of Europe, it may not like the answer.” – bto: wobei unsere Politiker ja die einzigen sind, die wirklich die Nation aufgeben wollen. Die anderen Länder wollen das nicht.
- “There is no Treaty basis for EU legal supremacy. Judicial expansionists in the EU legal services unit tried to slip it into the Lisbon Treaty but all they got was a thin Declaration in the annex stating that the ‚settled law of the Court‘ has primacy over national law. (…) The German judges have repeatedly objected to judicial activism by the ECJ, thunderously denouncing its misuse of the Charter to extend its power. Their finger has been on the trigger. Finally they pulled it. The implicit has suddenly become explicit.” – bto: Ich finde es schon problematisch, wie da ohne demokratische Legitimation Rechtszuständigkeiten verlagert werden, noch dazu auf ein Konstrukt, was ganz eindeutig nicht demokratisch legitimiert ist.
- “The ultra-Europeans are right to protest that this subverts the EU legal order as they wish it to be and renders the federalist project unworkable. But they got ahead of themselves in believing their own version of legality in the first place. The German People’s Court has broken the spell. The political reality is that the formidable and long-silent Deutsche Volk has said in crimson language that enough is enough. Ultra vires will not fly. Any attempt to bully them into submission must surely fail.” – bto: Das denke ich nicht. Die Bereitschaft zur Selbstaufgabe ist so weit ausgeprägt, dass das kommen wird. Ich denke, das Verfassungsgericht wird so neu bestellt, dass dieser “Fehler” nicht wieder passiert.
- “The euro area we have is not the one the German public signed up for. If it slides into a transfer union, the costs for Germany would be large and open-ended. (…) The idea of Germany leaving the euro area no longer sounds as far-fetched as it might have 15 years ago…The unthinkable is becoming thinkable.” – bto: niemals. Deutschland wird das nie machen, sondern bis zum bitteren Ende – und es wird wohl beides geben, ein Ende und ein bitteres – die Bereitschaft haben, den eigenen Wohlstand zu opfern.
