2008, Volume 14, N°2 - Centre d'études et de recherches ...

76
Bill DAVIES
by Adenauer himself. A picture then emerges of a Foreign ministry with the lead
role in monitoring political-legal developments, only partially aware of what the
ECJ was doing and certainly not motivated enough to act on the concerns of certain
academics, media debates and the trepidation of the Verfassungsressorts. In the Van
Gend en Loos case response, the officials who did feel strongly enough to voice
concerns to the ECJ were quickly and forcefully quietened by their political
superiors. The concerned Verfassungsressorts were hardly likely to get more
support from an Economics ministry with a profound interest in the establishment
of a fully functioning Common Market, founded on a powerful and effective set of
legal mechanisms.
The established view of the FRG as the “good European” only paints half the
picture. Whilst assumptions about the broad support of the West German
government and populace towards political and economic integration undoubtedly
hold true, this does not fully explain the hesitancy of the administration to respond
to the legal integration process, particularly in the face of public and academic
concerns about the integrity of the national constitution. The seemingly meek
acceptance of the ECJ’s doctrines was not primarily due to the permissive support
of the ministries. The FRG did after all submit its dissent in the Van Gend en Loos
case, which clearly points to turbulence below the apparently calm surface of the
“good European”. That turmoil has been documented here for the first time.
Instead, it should be seen that Adenauer and his clique of pro-European loyalists –
no better example than in Karl Carstens – held a stranglehold on the bureaucratic
machinery and shaped and dominated the ministerial constellation right from the
very start of the FRG so as to facilitate Germany’s role in an increasingly united
Europe. Wherever dissent lay in the bureaucracy – and the opinion submitted in the
Van Gend en Loos case should be seen as such an aberration - it was quelled, and
those ministries with most to say about the possibly dangerous implications for the
national constitution were routinely sidelined from European policy. The
dominance of the international law scholars within the AA over the constitutional
law specialists in the BMJ suited the political leadership’s purpose fantastically
well. The political agenda of the pro-integration elite would not allow public and
academic disquiet, nor even discord in the administrative machinery, to hinder or
delay the development of the European project.