In what was described by some observers as Europe’s “Hamiltonian moment,” last July the European Union’s 27 member states agreed to raise 750 billion euros through the European Commission to address the economic crisis which was sparked by the coronavirus. The debt-financed stimulus package has to be ratified by each national parliament – and 478 out of 645 German lawmakers supported the bill. But, in late March the EU’s Recover Fund hit a roadblock after the German constitutional court raised questions about how new debt is being taken on. The court determined that the Federal President may not sign off on legislation ratifying the European recovery package. It could take up to three months for the court to decide on this matter.
Join the American Council on Germany for an online discussion about the implications of this decision by Germany’s constitutional court and what’s at stake. We’ll be joined by economic policy experts Prof. Dr. Michael Hüther, the Director and Member of the Executive Committee of the German Economic Institute, and Prof. Dr. Monika Schnitzer, Professor of Economics and Chair of Comparative Economics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich.
Prof. Dr. Michael Hüther has served as Director and Member of the Executive Committee of the German Economic Institute since 2004. He has previously worked in a number of important positions in research, academia, and banking, including at Stanford University, the German Council of Economic Advisers, and DekaBank. Since 2001 he has held the Honorary Professorship for Economics at the European Business School. He is also a member of the EU Commission‘s Refit Platform, which advises the Commission on the efficient, effective, and practical implementation of EU legislation. He has a Ph.D. in Economics and History from the Justus Liebig University in Giessen. He was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the President of the Republic.
Prof. Dr. Monika Schnitzer is Professor in Economics and holds the Chair for Comparative Economics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. Her main research interests are innovation, competition policy, and multinational firms.
She is member of the German Council of Economic Experts (Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung – „Wirtschaftsweise“). She was a member and deputy chairwoman of the Commission of Experts for Research and Innovation from 2011 to 2019. In 2015 and 2016 she served as president of the Verein für Socialpolitik (German Economic Association). Since 2020, she is a member of the Economic Advisory Group on Competition Policy of the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission. Since 2001, she has also been a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.
In 2005, she received the Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Order of Merit) and in 2012, she received the Bavarian Order of Merit. From 2006 and 2009, she was the Dean of the Economics Faculty. Since 2007, she is the chairwoman of the University Research Board at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich.
Prof. Dr. Schnitzer studied Economics in Cologne and Bonn as well as at the London School of Economics. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Bonn in 1991. She was a visiting professor at MIT, Stanford University, Yale, the University of California at Berkeley, and Harvard University.
