Four academics lodged an appeal at the German Supreme Court yesterday, aimed at preventing Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) from going ahead as planned in 1999. They are arguing that, because the euro is likely to be weaker than the mark, EMU violates Germany's constitutional commitment to economic stability.
More than half of all Germans still oppose the abolition of the mark but an overwhelming majority believes that the euro is now unstoppable. Legal experts predict that the academics' petition will fail but one of the plaintiffs, Prof Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider, insisted that it was a genuine attempt to stop the euro before exchange rates are fixed in May.
"We are seeking this ruling to prevent the government from deciding to join EMU in May," he said.
Prof Schachtschneider was, at various times, a member of the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats before joining the Federation of Free Citizens, a tiny, anti-European party founded by Mr Manfred Brunner, a former EU official. The party, which has links with the extreme right-wing Austrian politician, Dr Joerg Haider, receives the support of fewer than 1 per cent of German voters.
Prof Schachtschneider is no longer a member of any party and he is at pains to emphasise the independent credentials of the anti-euro academics.
"There is nobody behind us professors. We never received a penny from business, even if we would happily have accepted it," the law professor said.
The other three plaintiffs are professors of economics and the most illustrious figure among the four is Prof Wilhelm Noelling, a former member of the board of the Bundesbank.
Prof Noelling, who describes himself as "a dyed-in-the-wool European" and supports further political integration, admits that EMU cannot be stopped in Germany by political means.
"The train has been put on track and it's running downhill. It's very hard to see how the brakes can be put on now," he said.
The New York-based Jewish Claims Conference said yesterday the German government had agreed to establish a fund of 200 million marks (£69 million) to compensate Jewish Nazi victims in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Germany will pay the sum into a new Holocaust fund over a period of four years, the Claims Conference added.
