This article discusses the inherent ambivalences of the state’s constitutional obligation to protect the ecology and the constitutional provisions protecting aspects of the economic system. The article demonstrates that the alleged neutrality of the constitutional order with regard to economy has to be reinterpreted and put more precisely. The Constitution avoids any position, which forces economy as a whole into a bounded and ideological system. Primarily, the Constitution endows economic subjects with individual freedom rights, like the right to property or the right to choose and exercise one’s occupation, which both implicitly require free markets and competition. The ‘economic constitution’ is supplemented by the constitutional provision, pursuant to which the state shall protect the natural foundations of life by legislation and, in accordance with law and justice, by executive and judicial action, all within the framework of the constitutional order and within a basic responsibility toward future generations. Both economic freedom rights and the obligation to protect the ecology are on equal terms within the constitutional framework and, thus, have to be balanced. The obligation to adjust economic policy to the requirements of an ‘overall economic equilibrium’ might be a model for the constitutional mechanics of interest balancing, too.