GERMAN CLOSING LAWS DECISION

On Tuesday, the German Constitutional Court upheld recent changes to the country’s store closing laws against a constitutional challenge. See the Globe and Mail’s story here, Deutsche Welle’s coverage here, and BBC’s story here. In German, read ZDF’s coverage here.

The court ruled that the current version of the law is constitutionally permissible. Individual states have a right to make minor changes in the law, according to the court, and they will be able to make more fundamental changes if parliament explicitly allows them to do so.

Reaction from the political parties was positive. A press release from the conservative opposition party CDU (here) states that the decision protects shopping-free Sundays, "a significant part of our culture." The Bavarian (and more conservative) version of the CDU, the CSU, claimed that the ruling was a "big day for federalism" (here). The CDU/CSU faction apparently wants to allow this issue to be decided at the state level. The Greens, minority party in the governing coalition at the center, were happy that the Court left their legislative product intact, and they argued that a "further liberalization" of the rules would "disadvantage small and mid-sized businesses" (here). The SPD likewise defended the law as it stands (here): "It is still important to protect workers from excessive work at socially unfortunate times." And unions are also happy with the decision (see here).

The whole decision in German is here and a press release from the court here. By the way, press releases and decisions from the court are both available as RSS feeds, here and here. Cool.

By the way, Tyler Cowen sees this court ruling as another sign of Europe’s economic decline, here. Cowen argues that the "small shop lobby" is the main obstacle to the liberalization of the laws, but that judgment requires ignoring the views of the SPD and Green leadership as well as the position of labor unions.