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Possible delay of EU treaty ratification in Germany
20.02.2008, 11:28
According to a report in German daily Die Welt, politicians from the Left Party as well as Peter Gauweiler, a centre-right politician from one of governing parties -the CSU - are examining the text of the EU treaty to see if they can bring a case before the country's constitutional court, meaning the bloc's biggest member state would not sign off the treaty in time for it to come into force across all member states at the beginning of 2009 as planned. This would be embarassing for chancellor Angela Merkel, who was largely responsible for getting a new treaty into shape again following the rejected constitution.
German MPs are widely expected to approve the treaty when it
comes before parliament in May. However, the text then needs to be signed off
by the country's president, Horst Kohler.
If Mr Gauweiler has put a case before the court, Mr Kohler will then have to
decide whether to go ahead and sign off the treaty anyway or wait for the court
to make its case.
Mr Kohler, who hopes to be re-elected as president in May
2009, now finds himself in an awkward position.
Formally, it is possible to sign off the treaty even if the court is examining
it, but such a move is politically difficult, especially if the constitutional
court were to eventually decide against the legality of the EU document.
So far Hungary, France, Slovenia, Malta and Romania have ratified the text,
which needs to be approved by all EU member states for it to come into force.
Source: EUobserver.com