Introduction

When the British Parliament legislates, it need not “justify” its acts. It is traditionally considered to enjoy a competence to do all things. This “omnipotence” is seen as inherent in the idea of a sovereign parliament in a “sovereign state”. The European Union is neither “sovereign” nor a “state”. Its powers are not inherent powers. They must be conferred by its foundational charter: the European Treaties. This constitutional principle is called the “principle of conferral”. The Treaty on European Union defines it as follows:

The Treaties employ the notion of competence in various provisions. Nevertheless, there is no positive definition of the concept. So what is a legislative competence? The best definition is this: a legislative competence is the material field within which an authority is entitled to legislate.

What are these material fields in which the Union is entitled to legislate? The Treaties do not enumerate the Union's “competences” in a single list. Instead, the Treaties pursue a different technique: they attribute legal competence for each and every Union activity in the respective Treaty title. Each policy area contains a provision – sometimes more than one – on which Union legislation can be based. The various “Union policies and internal actions” of the Union are set out in Part III of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Table 3.1).

The Treaties thus present a picture of thematically limited competences in distinct policy areas. This picture is however – partly – misleading. Three legal developments have posed serious threats to the principle of conferral. First, the rise of teleological interpretation that will be discussed in Section 1 below. The Union's competences are interpreted in such a way that they potentially “spill over” into other policy areas.