constitutional court
Karlsruhe approves provisional application of Ceta
In August 2016, Roman Huber, executive director of Mehr Demokratie eV, held up a box with powers of attorney for a civil complaint against the Ceta free trade agreement in front of the Federal Constitutional Court. Photo: picture alliance / dpa
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In 2016, nearly 200,000 people called for the EU’s trade pact with Canada to be halted immediately. Karlsruhe has now examined the “citizens’ lawsuits” in the main proceedings.
The Federal Constitutional Court has finally dismissed all five lawsuits by critics of the European-Canadian trade agreement CETA.
The decision on the provisional application of the agreement from October 2016 was not objectionable, the judges in Karlsruhe announced on Tuesday after around five and a half years of proceedings. At that time, they initially gave the green light for German participation in an urgent decision, but made conditions for it.
Ceta has been in force provisionally since September 21, 2017. However, some particularly contentious areas are on hold until the parliaments of all EU member states as well as Canada and the EU have ratified the pact. Twelve countries are still missing in the EU, including Germany. Karlsruhe therefore had no opportunity to examine this part of the agreement.
The judges of the Second Senate express clear doubts about the planned court and committee system. But it is too early to make a decision. Should the traffic light coalition ratify Ceta anyway, new lawsuits would be needed in Karlsruhe.
How is the new federal government reacting?
Critics of the agreement had mobilized broad resistance in 2016: more than 125,000 supporters joined the “citizens’ lawsuit” by the “No to Ceta” action alliance of the organizations Foodwatch, Campact and Mehr Demokratie. At the same time, a retired music teacher from North Rhine-Westphalia and her husband collected around 68,000 powers of attorney. The plaintiffs fear that Ceta will curtail their political participation rights. Environmental and consumer protection would be subordinate to free trade. The left-wing faction of the Bundestag at the time had also complained.
Proponents emphasize above all the extensive elimination of tariffs and trade barriers. At a meeting with Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in June 2021, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen drew a positive balance: in 2019, trade in goods grew by 25 percent and in services by 39 percent.
The exciting question should now be how the new federal government will react to the Karlsruhe decision. In their election program, the Greens had decided not to ratify Ceta in its current version due to deficits in climate, environmental and consumer protection. In the coalition agreement with SPD and FDP it is agreed: “We will make the decision on the ratification of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) after the examination by the Federal Constitutional Court has been completed.”