It is not turning out to be a pleasant winter in the European Union.

Having endured a final quarter last year described by EU Industry Commissioner Gunter Verheugen as economically “catastrophic in every respect” to be then beset by its third consecutive winter energy crisis courtesy of Russia’s imperialist politicking, the EU now faces the prospect of three nations slowing the progress of the European Constitution toward implementation.

The European Union is in the midst of its worst series of crises since its inception.

Ireland has received the heaviest flak from Eurocrats because of its balking on the ratification of the European constitution. The constitution is currently known as the Treaty of Lisbon, or the reform treaty, so as to hide its true intent. It is well known that Poland and the Czech Republic also have reservations about signing off on the treaty. Yet—surprise, surprise—it is Germany now, of all nations, that is about to deeply investigate the impact the EU reform treaty will have on its own national sovereignty!

Even though—without bothering to seek the will of the people by democratic vote—the German parliament has ratified the Lisbon Treaty and Horst Koehler, the German president, has put his signature to it, the final act to legitimize Germany’s acceptance of the treaty—formally handing the papers over in Rome—remains stalled. There is a legal reason for this.

EUobserver reported Wednesday that Germany’s constitutional court is preparing to hear a case brought by Peter Gauweiler, a member of Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (the party previously headed by Edmund Stoiber), who is claiming that the Lisbon Treaty not only infringes the rights of German citizens by allowing the European Court of Justice to supersede Germany’s court system, but also that the treaty allows for the German parliament, the Bundestag, to be trumped by the European Parliament.

The German government is taking this challenge quite seriously. The country’s constitutional court has set aside an unusually lengthy period—two full days—on February 10-11, to consider the matter. Dietrich Murswiek, the lawyer handling the case for Gauweiler, remarked on the hearing’s length: “This shows that the constitutional court is taking the issue very seriously. A hearing of longer than a day happens very rarely.”

The matters Herr Gauweiler has raised in relation to the impact of the Lisbon Treaty on Germany’s national sovereignty are very much akin to concerns over which British Euroskeptics have been vocal for years. Yet British Euroskeptics have received scant support from successive British governments for their cause. In fact, what concerns an increasing number of anti-treaty activists in Britain is the very real prospect of the mother of all parliaments, the British Parliament, becoming defunct by May 2010, should the European constitution/reform treaty be enacted.

What is fascinating to observe in this case is that the imperialist EU vision, a German idea from its beginning, is now stalled awaiting the judgment of a German court charged with assessing its very legality within Germany itself!

Still, as we have often quoted the views of a Euroskeptic acquaintance, British political economist Rodney Atkinson, the Germans are expert at creating a crisis, then posing their own solution to solve that crisis.

It was EU whistleblower Bernard Connelly who declared that the euro was created by Teutonic intent to fail so that a German solution could be imposed to solve the resultant crisis. EU Industry Commissioner Gunter Verheugen’s dire report on EU economic performance may be an early indicator of a looming crisis that could drastically affect the viability of the euro as the Union’s means of exchange.

With the fate of the Lisbon Treaty remaining in the balance—awaiting not only the Irish vote, scheduled for March, but also the outcome of ongoing skepticism in Poland and the Czech Republic, added to a constitutional court hearing in the land of the constitution’s main backers, Germany—the term crisis may just be one that we hear mentioned more often in coming months in relation to this ponderous union of 27 nation-states within the continent of Europe.