[nonethewiser]

Is Germany a sovereign country if an international court presides over them?

This tends to get brushed aside by people defending the EU. Isn't this a step in the direction of the EU becoming something like the United States? There tends to be a lot of double-speak on this: "That's not true" and "it's a good thing" at the same time.

[gpderetta]

Any country that signs any form of international agreement is giving away part of its sovereignty in exchange of some benefit. It is just a matter of degrees.

[karatinversion]

It is not. The whole point of the EU is to pool sovereignty for common benefit. Germany is constrained in things it can do: it cannot ban the importing of French wine, give huge subsidies to its domestic steel industry to gain market share in Europe, or stop Bulgarians entering the country.

Of course, there is no EU army enforcing EU law, so a sufficiently damn-the-consequences German government could do these things, at the cost of destroying the single market.

[radicaldreamer]

The EU's stick is financial

[layer8]

Germany is free to leave the EU if they don’t want to follow the accords anymore. Its being subject to EU law is voluntary.