Posted on 04/25/2005 8:46:25 PM PDT by jb6
BERLIN (Reuters) - The German parliament will ratify the EU constitution next month, a government spokesman said on Monday, dismissing both a legal challenge and the prospect of a clash with the federal states over the issue. "For me there is no question that the Bundestag (lower house) will decide on May 12," government spokesman Thomas Steg told a regular news conference.
"I expect...as the state premiers clearly told the Chancellor in December, that the Bundesrat (upper house) will decide on May 27," he said.
Unlike France, Germany has decided not to hold a referendum on the European Union constitution, which is generally supported by government and opposition parties and which has been expected to pass smoothly through parliament.
However a legal challenge by a conservative member of parliament and reports of tensions with the state governments, which are represented in the Bundesrat and which want more say in EU issues, has threatened to disrupt the move.
Peter Gauweiler, a deputy for the Christian Social Union, says the EU constitution will strip the German parliament of important powers and wants a national referendum on it.
He is due to present his challenge to Germany's constitutional court on Monday.
However Steg dismissed the challenge. "The (German) Basic Law is quite clear and I would risk the prediction that Mr Gauweiler's challenge has no prospect of success," he said.
German law has no provision for referendums.
The EU charter, which must be approved by all of the bloc's 25 member states has been passed by six countries but its future is in doubt with opinion polls suggesting that French voters will reject it in a referendum on May 29.
Officials had hoped that final approval of the constitution by the Bundesrat two days before the referendum in France would provide a boost to the French "Yes" camp.
German newspapers reported that the conservative-run states which control the Bundesrat may use the opportunity to demand more extensive states' rights in EU matters, by threatening to withhold approval until after the French vote.
But Steg insisted that approval would go through as expected in May.
© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
And the Franco-German Empire creeps one step closer to reality...
Ach Libre! Der Fuhrer Schroeder vil unite der Socialists und liberate der EU....(plan: first vee vil occupy France, then...)
Yeah, The Common Rabble may, gasp, prefer to maintain sovereignty in one form or another. The peasants, er, um, citizens may actually wish to maintain their national identity instead of being part of the Greater German Reich, er, EU.
The peasants, er, um, citizens may actually wish to maintain their national identity instead of being part of the Greater German Reich, er, EU.
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Been this way all along, but NAPOLEON and ADOLF do not recognize the will of the people.
Yup, they couldn't allow that to happen. History just keeps repeating itself in "Old Europe".
History tells us that it is an impossibility to have a union between people with different cultures, languages, history, and religions. It is just an impossibility.
The EU is all about destroying the national differences and is moving quite along. First they got rid of God.
Many people are beginning to see what a bum deal it is.
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What? You mean these people do not want to become part of the USSR, er, UESS, the United European Socialist States, to live under the "emperorship" of Chirac, Schroeder, et al??? How narrow of them to want to maintain their national independence and identity...why, that must be part of a great RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY fueled surely by the Bush administration and those EVIL AMERICANS!!!
I know it is shocking that the serfs, um, citizens are so narrow as to assert their nationhood. The princes, er, civil servants will just have to compell them to go along until they learn to like it. If they don't, then the civil servants will just have to forcibly educate them about the error of their ways.
/smartarsed commentary.
yeah...but the worry is....HOW WILL IT END.
The last time....it got pretty ugly.
Starting to think that France contains the dumbest creatures on the planet.
Didn't they learn their lesson the last time German came knocking.
Hey Jackie boy! Think PANZER DIVISION.
"Unlike France, Germany has decided not to hold a referendum on the European Union constitution..."
WHOA!
I think Europe is largely united religously. The religion is post Christian secular humanism, sort of. That is not the issue. Nobody cares about that. It is rather about economics and influence.
And brought in Allah.
I think you are right.
They learned it from the Soviets.
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