While the European Commission is playing down the impact of the German Constitutional Court’s decision to suspend the ratification of the ‘own resources to the EU budget’ decision in Germany (see EUROPE 12688/2), several political groups in the European Parliament are calling on the Commission to take action to uphold the Rule of law in the European Union
Domènec Ruiz Devesa (S&D, Spain), France’s Pascal Durand and Belgium’s Guy Verhofstadt of the Renew Europe Group , Damian Boeselager (Greens/EFA, Germany), Helmut Scholz (The Left, Germany) have sent a written question to the institution, questioning its inaction towards Germany since the Karlsruhe Court ruling in May 2020 challenging the proportionality of the ECB’s quantitative easing operation (see EUROPE 12480/17).
“Why has the Commission failed to this day to open infringement proceedings vis-a-vis Germany regarding the behaviour of the German Constitutional Court?”, MEPs ask.
In their view, the recent decision of the Constitutional Court not only creates “considerable uncertainty” about the implementation of the European Recovery Plan, but may also “open the way to interpret EU primary law with disregard of the Court of Justice jurisprudence and the principle of EU legal primacy, as it already did with its ruling of 5 May 2020”.
In a response provided in November 2020 to an earlier question on the Karlsruhe Court ruling of May 2020, the Commission reminded MEPs that it was exploring all possible avenues, including the launch of an infringement proceeding against Germany. On Monday, the Commission said it was in contact with the country’s authorities to bring it into line with EU law, although these discussions were not taking place in the context of a formal infringement proceeding (see EUROPE 12688/21). A positive outcome is expected around May.
Ratification of the ‘own resources’ decision is the sine qua non for authorising the Commission to borrow on the markets, on behalf of the EU27, the securities needed to finance the Next Generation EU Recovery Plan. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)