Decision of the “Federal Constitutional Court,” the German equivalent, more or less, of the USA’s Supreme Court. The Court consists of two Senates and six chambers, each specializing in different fields. Each Senate currently consists of eight judges. The Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG) is located in Karlsruhe and has a staff of about 120 people.
At 10 a.m. on Wed., 12 Sept. 2012, the eight members of the second Senate of the Bundesverfassungsgericht will announce their decision on a challenge raised to Germany’s participation in the ESM, the European Stability Mechanism, an entity with 700 billion euros in capital but whose total potential financial assistance to troubled eurozone countries is capped at 500 billion euros. The Bundesverfassungsgericht scheduled an unusually long time period to deliberate the ESM challenge—eight weeks—and in the meantime last week the ESM’s importance was somewhat diminished by the European Central Bank’s announcement that it will buy an unlimited amount of state debt from troubled eurozone countries.
It is assumed that the Bundesverfassungsgericht will not overturn participation in the ESM but may define interesting conditions. For example, according to Der Spiegel, conditions for receiving aid from the ESM have not yet been defined. Do eurozone countries have an ESM veto right? What will be the interplay between the ECB and the ESM? The conditions for receiving money from the ECB are said to be rather loose right now.
(BOON dess fer FOSS oongs ger ICKTS ent SHY doong.)
