Economic fears become election trump card

Bavaria in the EU

For a time, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) wanted to hold up further European integration – not unlike forces in  the Czech Republic and the UK. In response to a question earlier this year from CSU MEP Peter Gauweiler as to whether the Lisbon treaty was compatible with the German constitution, the country's constitutional court ruled that transfers of power to EU institutions required approval by the German parliament. The ruling also accused the European Parliament of lacking the legitimacy of a normal assembly because states were not equally represented through the number of MEPs. But the CSU's position had more to do with Bavarian resistance to losing power than outright anti-Europeanism. After a debate on the law Germany has introduced on the implementation of the Lisbon treaty, Gauweiler said that for Bavaria there was only a “gradual difference whether we are told what to do by Berlin or Brussels”. Last Friday (18 September) the upper house of the German parliament approved the new law and German President Horst Köhler is expected to sign the treaty into law in the coming weeks.