Is the European Federation a "Mission Impossible"?: A Critical Analysis of the German Constitutional Court's Judgement on the Lisbon Treaty. ZEI Discussion Paper No. 201, 2010

[From the Introduction]. The Court’s Reasoning and Conclusions to be Analyzed. The Court based these two barriers mainly on its understanding of • its own notion of an "association of sovereign national states" ("Staatenverbund") • the characteristics of the EU as a supranational body • the notions of "constitutional identity" and in that context of "sovereignty" • the requirements for democratic representation in a federally or quasifederally organized body • the "principle of conferral", the new categorization of EU competences and its implications • the rejection of an EU "competence on competence" and the need for clear delimitations of EU-competences. After investigating these matters and summing up the results of that analysis the judicial prospects for a European Federation will have to be considered