Peter Gauweiler

Political career

Gauweiler joined the CSU in 1968 and has been an elected politician since 1972, first in the Munich City Council, later in the Bavarian state parliament. In 1987, during Gauweiler’s time as secretary of state in the State Interior Ministry, Bavaria put into effect some of the stiffest AIDS regulations ordered anywhere in the world, including mandatory blood tests for prostitutes, drug addicts, prison inmates, applicants for civil-service jobs and some foreigners seeking residence in Bavaria. From 1990 to 1994, Gauweiler was Bavarian State Minister for Regional Development and Environment. Most notably during that time, he demanded that the Party of Democratic Socialism and the German Communist Party be outlawed after German reunification.

From 2006, Gauweiler served as a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Foreign Cultural and Educational Policies of the German Bundestag. In 2009, he accompanied German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on what was the first visit to Iraq by a German foreign minister in 22 years. Along with fellow lawmakers Günter Gloser, Monika Grütters, Luc Jochimsen and Claudia Roth, Gauweiler traveled to Iran in 2010 to meet with Ali Larijani, Manouchehr Mottaki and others; the trip was heavily criticized by international human rights organizations. In 2012, he argued that the German government's gold reserves held in the United States should be repatriated.

Following the 2009 federal elections, Gauweiler was part of the CDU/CSU team in the negotiations with the FDP on a coalition agreement; he joined the working group on foreign affairs, defense and development policy, led by Franz Josef Jung and Werner Hoyer. Similarly, he participated in the negotiations on forming a so-called Grand Coalition with the SPD following the 2013 federal elections.

In November 2013, Gauweiler was elected deputy chairman of the CSU, in what was widely considered a move to appease the eurosceptic elements within his party. He resigned the post and his seat in the Bundestag on March 31, 2015 about three months before his 65th birthday; he had previously been strongly criticized by CSU leader Horst Seehofer for voting against the extension of financial aid for Greece. After his resignation he was immediately invited to become "a top official", by one report, in the euro-skeptic Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party but he declined the invitation. The same report speculated that the resignation would cause Chancellor Angela Merkel more difficulty by removing a protector of her right political flank in the parliament.

Euroscepticism

Over many years, Gauweiler has led several attempts to have the German constitutional court block measures that enhance the EU’s powers at the cost of national sovereignty. Even if his legal cases fail, as they generally have, his assaults tend to win support among conservative voters, including most recently backers of the eurosceptic AfD party.

In 1992, Gauweiler described the Maastricht Treaty as a "totalitarian dream," while mocking its key component, a common currency by 1999, as "Esperanto money." In 2008, he challenged the German ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, claiming the treaty unconstitutional. He launched a similar challenge to the European Constitution in 2005, but after its failure the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany made no ruling and a presidential signature was never given. In 2008, he challenged the Treaty of Lisbon before the constitutional court, saying that the proposed reforms of the EU would undermine the independence of the German Parliament and clash with the German Constitution.

Gauweiler has also been among the most aggressive challengers of the European Central Bank rescue efforts during the Euro crisis at the Constitutional Court. In 2011, together with a group of academics, he unsuccessfully asked the court to block the country’s participation in the bail-out packages for Greece and in the European Financial Stability Facility, the predecessor of the European Stability Mechanism. In 2012, Gauweiler filed a complaint against the ESM and included opposition to a banking license for the bailout fund. Gauweiler claimed that the ECB's bond-buying program threatened Germany with unlimited losses, arguing that it is an additional ground to reject use of German tax revenue for the rescue fund. He managed to convince a majority of justices on the court's second senate that the ECB's program to save the European common currency was contrary to European Union law. The judges subsequently referred the case onward to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, a first for the German court.

On January 27, 2015, Gauweiler voted against the Merkel government’s proposal for a four-month extension of Greece's bailout; in doing so, he joined a record number of 29 dissenters from the CDU/CSU parliamentary group who expressed skepticism about whether the Greek government under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras could be trusted to deliver on its reform pledges.

Legal practice

Gauweiler is a partner in the law firm Bub, Gauweiler & Partner in Munich. Among other high-profile cases, the firm represented Gauweiler’s friend and onetime media mogul Leo Kirch in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against Deutsche Bank.

Other activities

Publications