Treaty 'creates uncontrolled body'
Mr Pringle claims the February 2012 ESM treaty - which provides for a €500 billion strictly conditional, permanent rescue fund for the 17 member states using the Euro currency - breaches the Irish Constitution, EU law and the treaties of the EU on several grounds.
The ESM Treaty dilutes the financial sovereignty of this State and confers excessive powers on the Minister for Finance and other officers of the State, he alleges.
Mr Pringle claims the ESM Treaty is inextricably intertwined with the stability treaty and with the March 2011 European Council amendment to Article 136 of the TFEU. He claims the Yes vote in the stability treaty referendum is being used by the Government to unlawfully push through the ESM Treaty and the amendment to Article 136.
Under the treaty, the new ESM institution being set up to provide bailout funding will have unlimited borrowing powers and will not be subject to any restrictions, regulations or control in carrying out its activities, Mr Rogers outlined today.
No institution of the EU, including the European Court of Justice, will have power to regulate the new ESM, the court heard. The ESM treaty states the new institution may provide funding to distressed states subject to "strict conditionality" which "may range from a macro-economic adjustment programme to continuous respect of pre-established eligibility conditions".
Such "strict conditionality" interferes with the economic and fiscal authority of affected member states and with the co-ordination of economic policy under the TFEU, Mr Pringle said.
Matters relating to Economic and Monetary Policy are within the exclusive competence of the EU under Article 3 of the TFEU, but the purported amendment of Article 136 of the TFEU to create an ESM purported to alter that exclusive competence, he argues.
The ESM Treaty is incompatible with the Constitution because it involves an impermissible transfer of fiscal and economic sovereignty to both the Government and the ESM institution, he also claims. The Irish people must be consulted where amendment of the EU treaties creates a mechanism at odds with the treaties themselves.
The Government, Ireland and the Attorney General dispute Mr Pringle's entitlement to the declarations sought, including that the ESM treaty violates the principles of the TFEU.
The decision adopting the amendment to Article 136 will come into effect in January 2013 if approved by all 27 member states. It is intended the ESM treaty comes into effect next month, but Mr Pringle argues that would be unlawful on several grounds including that the ESM Treaty is dependent on amendment of Article 136.
The case continues.
