-, Sentenza del BUNDESVERFASSUNGSGERICHT - BVerfG, 2 BvE 2/08 del 30.6.2009 sulla ratifica del Trattato di Lisbona da parte della Germania

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Headnotes

1. With its Article 23, the Basic Law grants powers to participate and develop a European Union which is designed as an association of sovereign national states (Staatenverbund). The concept of Verbund covers a close long-term association of states which remain sovereign, an association which exercises public authority on the basis of a treaty, whose fundamental order, however, is subject to the disposal of the Member States alone and in which the peoples of their Member States, i.e. the citizens of the states, remain the subjects of democratic legitimisation.  
2. a) To the extent that the Member States elaborate the law laid down in the Treaties in such a way that, with the principle of conferral fundamentally continuing to apply, an amendment of the law laid down in the Treaties can be brought about without a ratification procedure, a special responsibility is incumbent on the legislative bodies, apart from the Federal Government, as regards participation; in Germany, participation must, on the national level, comply with the requirements under Article 23.1 of the Basic Law (responsibility for integration) and can, if necessary, be asserted in proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court.
   b) A law within the meaning of Article 23.1 sentence 2 of the Basic Law is not required to the extent that special bridging clauses are restricted to areas which are already sufficiently determined by the Treaty of Lisbon. Also in these cases, however, it is incumbent on the Bundestag and - to the extent that the legislative competences of the Länder are affected, on the Bundesrat - to comply with its responsibility for integration in another suitable manner.  
3. European unification on the basis of a union of sovereign states under the Treaties may not be realised in such a way that the Member States do not retain sufficient room for the political formation of the economic, cultural and social circumstances of life. This applies in particular to areas which shape the citizens’ circumstances of life, in particular the private space of their own responsibility and of political and social security, which is protected by the fundamental rights, and to political decisions that particularly depend on previous understanding as regards culture, history and language and which unfold in discourses in the space of a political public that is organised by party politics and Parliament.  
4. The Federal Constitutional Court reviews whether legal instruments of the European institutions and bodies, adhering to the principle of subsidiarity under Community and Union law (Article 5.2 ECT; Article 5.1 sentence 2 and 5.3 of the Treaty on European Union in the version of the Treaty of Lisbon <TEU Lisbon>), keep within the boundaries of the sovereign powers accorded to them by way of conferred power (see BVerfGE 58, 1 <30-31>; 75, 223 <235, 242>; 89, 155 <188>: see the latter concerning legal instruments transgressing the limits). Furthermore, the Federal Constitutional Court reviews whether the inviolable core content of the constitutional identity of the Basic Law pursuant to Article 23.1 sentence 3 in conjunction with Article 79.3 of the Basic Law is respected (see BVerfGE 113, 273 <296>). The exercise of this competence of review, which is rooted in constitutional law, follows the principle of the Basic Law’s openness towards European Law (Europarechtsfreundlichkeit), and it therefore also does not contradict the principle of loyal cooperation (Article 4.3 TEU Lisbon); with progressing integration, the fundamental political and constitutional structures of sovereign Member States, which are recognised by Article 4.2 sentence 1 TEU Lisbon, cannot be safeguarded in any other way. In this respect, the guarantee of national constitutional identity under constitutional and the one under Union law go hand in hand in the European legal area.