## Facts

- A German import/export firm challenged a German authority’s decision forfeiting an export deposit after the firm only partially used an export licence for corn semolina/ground maize.
- The forfeiture was based on EEC regulations governing export licences and deposits under the Common Agricultural Policy, requiring deposits to be forfeited if exports did not occur within the licence period.
- The firm sued in the Administrative Court of Frankfurt/Main seeking annulment of the forfeiture decision.
- The administrative court sought a preliminary ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which upheld the validity of the EEC measures and stated that Community measures’ validity is judged by Community law, while fundamental rights form part of Community general principles.
- After the ECJ ruling, the administrative court referred the matter to the German Federal Constitutional Court under the Basic Law’s concrete review procedure to test whether the relevant EEC rules were compatible with German constitutional fundamental rights.

## Issues

1. Whether the German Federal Constitutional Court may review secondary EEC law for compatibility with the German Basic Law’s fundamental rights, given the transfer of sovereign powers to the Communities and the ECJ’s primacy doctrine.
2. Whether the specific EEC export-deposit forfeiture provisions, as interpreted by the ECJ, violated German constitutional rights (including economic liberty and proportionality) so as to bar their application by German authorities and courts.

## Decision

- The court held it retained jurisdiction, in principle, to review secondary Community acts against German fundamental rights “so long as” Community law lacked a parliamentary, binding fundamental-rights catalogue equivalent in substance to the Basic Law’s rights protections.
- The court characterized this review as residual and subsidiary, operating after the ECJ has issued the required preliminary ruling on the relevant Community law.
- On the merits, the court concluded that no Basic Law fundamental right precluded the application of the challenged EEC export-deposit rules; the reference failed on substantive grounds.
- A dissent by three justices objected to aspects of the majority’s approach, warning about effects on the uniform application of Community law and the scope of national constitutional review.

## Legal Principles

- Transfer of sovereign powers to a supranational organization does not authorize displacement of the Basic Law’s core constitutional commitments, including effective protection of fundamental rights.
- German acceptance of Community law’s priority is conditional: absent an equivalent, democratically adopted and operative Community fundamental-rights catalogue, German constitutional review may be available to prevent application of Community acts that conflict with Basic Law rights.
- The constitutional court’s intervention is designed as a last-resort safeguard and is not triggered merely by policy disagreement; it requires a conflict with protected fundamental rights, assessed with attention to essential content and proportionality.
- Where a contested Community regulatory scheme pursues legitimate economic-policy aims and its burdens do not violate the essential content of protected rights, German authorities and courts may apply the Community rules.

## Conclusion

The court announced a conditional “so long as” approach to Community-law priority: it would permit constitutional review of Community acts for compliance with German fundamental rights until Community-level rights protection became equivalent, yet it upheld the export-deposit forfeiture regime because it did not violate any Basic Law fundamental right.


In re Internationale Handelsgesellschaft mbH (Solange I), 2 BvL 52/71 (BVerfG 1974)