Karlsruhe allows German help
AfD fails with lawsuit against EU Corona Fund
November 17, 2023, 11:45 a.m
In the Corona pandemic, the EU Commission is setting up a special fund worth 750 billion euros to absorb the economic consequences of the crisis. Germany should and wants to participate too. The AfD sues against it – and loses in the Federal Constitutional Court.
A lawsuit brought by the AfD parliamentary group against Germany’s participation in the European Union’s Corona aid fund has failed before the Federal Constitutional Court. The court rejected the lawsuit as inadmissible, as it announced in Karlsruhe. As a result of other lawsuits, the Constitutional Court had already decided in December that Germany could participate in the aid fund – at that time, other lawsuits were involved.
The European heads of state and government want to use the reconstruction fund to cushion the consequences of the pandemic. The EU Commission was exceptionally authorized to raise 750 billion euros on the capital markets – at 2018 prices – and to pass this on to the member states as grants or loans for a specific purpose. The EU countries are jointly liable for the repayment.
The Bundestag and Bundesrat agreed in March 2021, and in April 2021 Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier signed the German ratification law. The AfD lawsuit, which has now failed, was specifically directed against the federal government’s participation in the European decision and against the participation of the federal government and the Bundestag in the German law.