The Europeanisation of law-making in Germany: Overrated!

I have just read a scientific article from September 2008 titled

"Das Regieren jenseits des Nationalstaates und der Mythos einer 80-Prozent-Europäisierung in Deutschland"

('Governing beyond the nation state and the myth of an 80% Europeanisation in Germany') by Thomas König and Lars Mäder.

In this article, the authors try to analyse thoroughly how many laws in Germany have been passed based on European impulses. The figures they use are mainly based on the public database of the Bundestag (the German parliament) and supplemented with data form the EUR-LEX database.

What they find is that

• from 1976-2005, 24% of all German laws have had a European impulse, with the 2002-2005 legislative period being the peak with 35,7%;

• from 1980-2005, 24% of all German laws with financial implications had an EU impulse, with the 2002-2005 legislative period being the peak with 35,8%;

• from 1976-2005, 14,6% of all German laws with key importance were initiated by the EU, with the 2002-2005 period being the peak at 33,3%.
  

In certain policy areas like justice or agriculture, the figures can go above the 50% - but if the work was correct, figures above 70% in particular regarding the total amount of laws do not seem realistic under a quantitative and even under a restricted qualitative perspective (i.e. based on the the concept of "key importance").

This also confirms doubts raised lately by Open Europe about these figures flying around during the European Parliament election campaign.