A proposed constitutional division of competences between the European Union and the member states

Abstract

It is the purpose of this thesis to provide an analysis of the provisions on the distribution of competences between the European Union and the Member States laid down in the 'Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe' prepared by the Praesidium of the Convention of the Future of Europe which was submitted to the European Council in Thessaloniki, Greece on June 2003 and is currently being debated at an Intergovernmental Conference of the EU. With the aim of reaching a better understanding of the present day legal and political anxieties, as well as, the options available to address or redress the problems the Union now faces in this area, in the first chapter I present a "constitutional institutional" history which attempts to delineate the boundaries separating the European Union from Member State action. This leads to Chapter II which outlines the current system of delimitation of competence, the problems it encounters and the avenues to be explored in order to achieve the desired clarification and simplification. In Chapter III, I examine the proposed system as set in the draft treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. The latter is structured into four major parts. I deal with Part I, which is devoted to the principles, objectives and institutional provisions governing the new European Union, and Part III, which comprises the provisions governing the policies and the functioning of the Union. Whereas Chapter III focuses on the way competences have been expressed in the Constitution, and the legal and conceptual foundations, Chapter IV looks at subsidiarity which has been made a central tool of competence control. This Chapter therefore builds on the third and together they try to answer the question of how Union powers would be managed under the Constitution.