Checking the EU

Summer. Parliament has broken up for the recess. Awareness for political issues is low, as the business and most of it's protagonists are slowing down from the ordinary speed during the rest of the year. "Sommerloch", or summer hollow, is what it is called, when nothing happens, and many issues make it to the breaking news that otherwise would have gone down the drain right away. "Orchids", just for few people who like them.

I don't think this applies at all to an interview with the German Supreme Court's president, Hans-Jürgen Papier, in today's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. But I think it is rather queer that he should be asked to comment on the necessary checks and balances the European Union and it's jurisdiction by the European Court of Justice need, when practically everyone is out on the beach. Let's hope the members of the cabinet's in Berlin and Brussels have made sure they don't miss out in this one, because it is dynamite.

Papier ist not the first, but certainly not the least in a row of prominent experts which are sceptical of the drain of sovereignty EU member states have had to face over the years. Especially the principle of subsidiarity needs to be enforced, argues Papier:

FAZ: You are not satisfied with the way the principle of subsidiarity is applied?
Papier: No. the principle belongs to the judicial codex of the EU, but practically doesn't play any role. This must be changed!

Papier does not hold the European Court of Justice responsible for the enforcement, but the parliaments of member states. What he doesn't say, but means, is that it is those parliaments which fail mostly. Consequently, the member state's supreme courts are the true guardians of the principle of subsidiarity. They, and not the European Court of Justice, are the true guardians according to Papier. Whereas the ECJ may rule about the implementation of Law of the Community, the Supreme Courts of the member states can order their parliaments to ignore EU-law which violates the member states' constitution in the first place.

After all, as Papier pointed out:

The EU is nothing but a federation of independent states, not a federal rebublic!

I will continue on this later, when I have returned from a business trip to Berlin.