– Germany’s top court to rule on euro bailouts Sept 7 (International Business Times, August 23, 2011):
Germany’s top court will give its verdict early next month on whether the government broke the law with last year’s bailouts of debt-stricken euro zone countries — a ruling which could limit Berlin’s room to manage the region’s debt crisis.
The Karlsruhe-based Federal Constitutional Court will announce its verdict on Sept. 7 at 0800 GMT, it said in a statement on Tuesday.
The court is considering three lawsuits brought by six eurosceptic plaintiffs — five academics and a lawmaker from the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats — against German-backed international bailout schemes for Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
The plaintiffs argue that the bailouts, which total 273 billion euros ($393 billion), violate property rights and other protections in the German and European constitutions, and break the “no-bailout” clause in the European Union’s treaty, which says neither the EU nor member states should take on other governments’ liabilities.