Sovereignty and democracy in the European speech of the Constitutional German Court

Abstract

This paper analyzes the German Federal Constitutional Court case-law about the European integration process. Both concepts of sovereignty and democracy, base of its reasoning, have been constructed as related to a national legal system. Therefore, the nature, functions and limits of the EU has been determined by the BVerfG in relation to state categories. This paper tries to show how since Lisbon’s ruling (2009), the bases for a definition of sovereignty and democracy from the point of view of the common constitutional tradition of Member States may have been established. That’s to say, what modern Schools for Scientific Thought call iuspublicum europaeum. The German Federal Constitutional Court makes this methodological transformation returning to the material concept of democracy established during the 50’s and 60’s. If it was then used in order to construct a militant democracy ad intra against the enemies of democracy, it may be now used to the militant defense ad extra of democracy. The respect for German political identity imposed by Lisbon’s ruling supports this idea.