Peter Gauweiler, the vice-chairman of the Christian Social Union, sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, has resigned from the leadership and the Bundestag.
A eurosceptic he has frequently clashed with Brussels and Frankfurt. He has put many cases to the German Constitutional Court, unuslly on the grounds that one regulation or another harms national sovereignty.
He described the Maastricht Treaty as a “totalitarian dream” and wrote off the Euro as “Esperanto money.”
More seriously, in 2011 he tried to get the court to block Germany’s participation in bailout packages for Greece and n the European Financial Stability Facility. He also tried to halt the ECB bond-buying, saying it could lead to unlimited losses for Germany.
In January he voted against Merkel’s proposed four month extension of Greece’s bailout.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/merkel-ally-quits-over-approach-greek-debt