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The impression I received from this event is in strange contrast to the mild complacency with which, to my mind, most of the German public seems to be following the current formation of the government in Israel. The Israel correspondent of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, for example, recently played down the process of this government formation as "Bibi and the right-wing gang of rascals", without touching on its constitutional dimension with more than a scant subordinate sentence. There are Netanyahu's opponents on one side, according to whom everything will be very bad. There is Netanyahu himself on the other side, who says everything is fine. So the German newspaper reader can, as usual, make herself comfortable in the juste milieu, where she has felt so comfortable for a long time, and in many cases still feels, in the case of Hungary and Poland: Oh, well, as the saying goes, we'd best wait and see whether the dish will have to be eaten as hot as it is cooked.
But with constitutional policy – as with climate policy, for that matter – that wait-and-see strategy is a tricky one. Once the effects can be felt, it is too late. Once the constitutional ties are blown up, the judiciary has been stuffed with compliant minions, and the Supreme Court has been stripped of its controlling function, there is no longer any hope of salvation from the side of the constitution anyway. Wait-and-see means in fact taking a side. At best, one can delude oneself a little longer about which it is.
To the German public, it is in most parts, quite rightly and thankfully, supremely important never to take a position against the Jewish state. But what does that even mean if the Jewish state is no longer a democratic state? Whose state is a state anyway, in which there is no longer an independent court system and indeed no one at all who could prevent the government from suppressing minorities, opposition, political diversity and democratic competition? What is Jewish about a state that withdraws its promise of protection from millions of Jews around the world because the way they practise their religion does not seem orthodox enough to some theocratic rabbis? What does it mean to be a Jewish state when illegal occupation turns into de facto annexation and the occupied territories into a "Smotrichstan" of total disenfranchisement and defencelessness of the Palestinian population against the violence of the settlers? What does it mean then to be at the side of the Jewish state? To whom exactly should the solidarity of the Federal Republic of Germany and its society then apply?
Considering how long and intensively and with what governmental effort we in Germany have been discussing criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism and the boundary between both lately, it seems to me that we are desperately ill-prepared to answer these questions.
The week on Verfassungsblog
… summarized by PAULINE SPATZ:
The Federal Constitutional Court has ruled that the ratification law of the Own Resources Decision adopted on the basis of the "Next Generation EU" construction instrument is constitutional. MATTHIAS RUFFERT comments on the ruling. For THU NGUYEN and MARTIJN VAN DEN BRINK, the decision sends contradictory signals and raises the question of why Karlsruhe did not refer the case to the Luxembourg Court.
The federal government is currently discussing reform plans for naturalization. The CDU and FDP, among others, fear that making it easier to obtain German citizenship would reduce its value. SAMUEL D. SCHMID shows that these and other fears are unfounded. SINA FONTANA calls for legal policy debates on naturalization to focus primarily on the state's responsibility for integration. And MARIA MARTHA GERDES explains why the reform of naturalization law will only work with an additional reform of the law on expatriation.
The ECJ has ruled that information on beneficial owners of companies may not be made available to the public. TRISTAN RADTKE shows why this does not mean a complete loss of transparency.
On 30 November, the European Commission recommended freezing a huge part of the EU funds for Hungary in two procedures. KATI CSERES argues that the Commission should have demanded a full and effective role of the Hungarian Competition Authority in protecting the EU budget. THU NGUYEN untangles the two procedures politically and economically and shows why they are currently stuck in a political limbo with Brussels threatening to withhold funds and Orbán threatening to use his veto powers.
The ECtHR has found that the Hungarian parliamentary electoral system violates the human rights of minority voters. In her analysis, ANNA UNGER reviews the unlawful situation and the necessary actions resulting from the judgment. |
