Germany’s Constitutional Court yesterday said a last-minute legal challenge by a leading euroskeptic politician would not delay its hotly awaited verdict on key euro crisis tools.
“The date fixed for the ruling” on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) rescue fund and EU fiscal pact today “will go ahead as planned,” the court said in a statement.
That means that at 10am today, the eight scarlet-robed judges of the Verfassungsgericht will decide whether German President Joachim Gauck can sign into law the ESM and the European fiscal pact.
Photo: EPA
The German parliament already voted in favor of both with a two-thirds majority at the end of June.
However, Gauck held off from completing the ratification process in the face of legal challenges filed by the far-left Die Linke party, a citizens’ initiative group called “More Democracy” and a well-known euroskeptic from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CSU Bavarian sister party, Peter Gauweiler.
In an attempt to delay today’s ruling, Gauweiler filed a new complaint at the weekend, arguing that the European Central Bank’s decision to launch a new bond-buying program had moved the goalposts and that the court must now first decide whether the bond purchase program is legal before it can rule on the constitutionality of the ESM rescue fund.
The Constitutional Court held an emergency session on Monday to decide whether to delay its planned ruling today in the face of Gauweiler’s latest challenge.
Gauweiler and the other groups argue that the ESM — the EU’s permanent 500 billion euro (US$630-billion) rescue fund — and the fiscal pact are incompatible with Germany’s Grundgesetz, or Basic Law, because they are effectively forcing Germany to surrender its budgetary sovereignty without the necessary democratic backing.
Meanwhile, billionaire financier George Soros said on Monday that the eurozone was edging ever closer to a solution to its debt crisis.
Speaking in Berlin at an event organized by the Institute for Media and Communications Policy, Soros said: “I am happy to note that the political debate in Germany has shifted in favor of saving the euro.”
He was referring to the EU summit in June, where leaders agreed to allow the eurozone bailout fund to help stricken banks, and the European Central Bank’s decision last week to buy the bonds of debt-wracked countries.
“Both were made possible by the support of Chancellor Angela Merkel,” Soros said.
In an essay appearing in several publications over the weekend, the 82-year-old suggested that Germany should either accept its role as de facto leader of the eurozone or leave the bloc altogether.
If Germany left the euro, the value of the currency shared by the rest of the bloc would depreciate sharply, Soros said, making their exports more attractive and slowly becoming more competitive.
“Europe would escape from the looming depression,” he said.
Soros added that today’s decision by Germany’s Constitutional Court on the legality of the ESM bailout fund and the EU’s fiscal pact for greater budget discipline might prevent the German leadership role he recommends.
“In that case, Germany would have to hold a referendum to decide whether to lead or leave,” he said.
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
Chinese entrepreneur Frank Gao used to spend long hours running his social media accounts but now outsources the chore to artificial intelligence (AI) agent tool OpenClaw, which is taking China by storm despite official warnings over cybersecurity. OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots such as ChatGPT because it can execute real-life tasks such as sending e-mails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets. “Since January, I’ve spent hours on the lobster every day,” Gao said in an interview, referring to OpenClaw’s red crustacean mascot. “We’re family.” After downloading OpenClaw, users connect it to artificial intelligence models of their
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
RSS