Demokratie für Deutschland, Austerität für Europa? Grenzen der Solidarität in der rechtsprechung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts

On the basis of the ruling of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) – announced by the German Federal Constitutional Court – the article examines how constitutional resolutions of euro zone crisis-induced conflicts affect the institutionalisation of transnational solidarity in Europe. For this purpose, it is argued that the crisis-induced politicisation of European governance is understood as a reproduction and strengthening of transnational solidarity conflicts. Against this backdrop, it maps out how the court frames the supranational conditionalisation of financial solidarity towards the debtor countries inherent in the ESM as a necessary requirement of the democratic principle of the German constitution (Grundgesetz). Hence, the court does not only affirm the crisis politics of the German federal government ; it runs into a dilemma of democratic governance in Europe and closes down the interpretative openness of the constitution in a way that undermines the political leeway for institutionalising a more progressive understanding of solidarity in ­Europe.