yesterday said Prof. Dr. Christoph Ohler (University of Jena) at the invitation of the JEF Erfurt on: Quo Vadis EU - the way of Europe after the Irish referendum. In a familiar round of Mr. Ohler broke quickly from the usual presentation style through open dialogue with the participants. After an overview of the recent integration of course, fueled a debate about the ambitious objectives of the Constitutional Treaty and what remained of him in the Lisbon reform treaty left. Apart from some cosmetic changes to this element was mainly due to less symoblische state-supporting elements to pave the way for the Lisbon Treaty to make room. No agreement was about achieved if the Union was suffering from too much or too little politics. Prof. Ohler explained that occasionally quite highly politicized European debates were taking place, such as the Services Directive or the Agrasubventionen. Some participants, this was not enough to create a genuine European public. Including with regard to the character of the Union's institutions, has been hotly debated. Such were the strong dependence of participants to the Commission by EU Member States as problematic as this would lead to weak regular Commissioners. In contrast Ohler was the actual competence of the EU Commission's wealth, which would be virtually no counterweight, if Member States their occupation is not likely to have a say accordingly.
Also interesting were comments on the Prof. Ohler Constitutional Court ruling. The SNB had further integration steps of the EU so far advanced to stop it, that it represented the elements contained in the Lisbon Treaty to broaden skills without re-ratification by parliamentary approval. In other words, should all decisions that provide for a competency enlargement without treaty amendment procedure should be confirmed by the German Bundestag.
This is for my opinion, a hurdle that a German federal government should be quite willing to take. It must mean no end of any integration. Other interesting Contributions to relax the principle of democracy and questions of input and output legitimacy of the government decision. So the question of whether the legitimacy of governments by democratic elections (input) or by good policy and its results (output).
Overall a very successful evening. We thank the European Union for financial support of Thuringia.
Martin Behrens
