BERLIN, Oct. 12, 1993 (UPI) - Germany's Constitutional Court on Tuesday dismissed an appeal against the Maastricht Treaty, issuing a long awaited decision that clears the way for a closer European union. Germany was the last of 12 European Community members to ratify the treaty, and the approval of the court in Karlsruhe allows implementation of the agreement to establish closer economic, monetary and political ties in the European Community.
The court's decision also means the treaty, approved by Germany's Parliament, will not have to be renegotiated.
In dismissing the case against Maastricht, the highest German court said the treaty was compatible with democratic principles, but stressed there were requirements facing the democratic legitimacy of the planned European union.
The court said a decisive aspect regarding Community democracy would be whether democratic foundations of the EC would be expanded at the same speed as European integration and whether a ''lively democracy'' would be retained.
The court also said that handover of limited elements of German sovereignty to the European Community must be carefully controlled and not become a ''general authorization'' that might strip Germany of its governmental autonomy and violate the German constitution.
An opinion poll released Tuesday showed 50 percent of all Germans support Maastricht, with 35 percent opposed and 15 percent undecided.
But 70 percent of the 2,000 people polled said they opposed giving up the German mark for a Euro-currency.
The appeal against Maastrict was made by the left-wing ecological Greens Party and Manfred Brunner, a member of the liberal Free Democratic Party who used to work for the European Commission in Brussels.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a staunch supporter of European Union, said the court's decision was ''an important road mark for the European integration process.''
Kohl called for the prompt implementation of all Maastrict Treaty provisions.
Germany's finance minister, Theo Waigel, said the Court's 85-page ruling had correctly stressed that convergence of the EC member state economies had priority over the setting of a date for creating a common currency.
''Every single country, Germany included, must qualify itself for taking part in the currency union,'' said Waigel.
The cornerstone of the Maastricht Treaty, agreed by the government heads of the 12 EC members in December 1991, is the creation of a common currency and central bank by 1999 at the latest.
