Leading the plaintiffs is Markus Kerber, a Berlin law professor at the forefront of the battle against the euro, who yesterday filed a complaint with the German Constitutional Court (Karlsruhe) asking it to postpone the verdict. The reasoning is that on 3 August the Irish deputy Thomas Pringle presented a new appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union on the same issue. Pringle in fact, not happy with the verdict of the Supreme Court in Dublin which declared the constitutionality of the ESM and ratified it in the country, continues to consider it incompatible with the European Treaties. Kerber had asked Karlsruhe to wait for Brussels' judgment before commenting on the new stability mechanism. “Until the European Court of Justice has decided on the compatibility of these agreements with the Treaties, neither the Constitutional Court nor the German president can decide,” he argued. But Karlsruhe has put its hands forward. “A postponement of the date of the verdict is excluded at the moment”a court spokesman said.
There are two precedents that bode well for the German ok: both the Supreme Court of Estonia and that of Ireland have declared the constitutionality of the ESM. It also appears that Germany has understood that it cannot afford to make the same mistake it made two years ago with Greece: wait. Because in the meantime the spreads of the weaker countries would continue to rise, perhaps reaching a point of no return. And the markets are impatiently awaiting the placement of the first 500 billion euros in the ESM: only the German verdict is missing.
