| Abstract: | Šiame darbe yra nagrinėjama, ar Europos Sąjungos sutartyje ir sutartyje dėl Europos Sąjungos veikimo Europos Sąjungos kompetencija yra aiškiai apibrėžta. Tam kad, būtų galima geriau suprasti dabartinių kompetencijos normų apibrėžtumą, pirmoje darbo dalyje buvo apžvelgtas suteikimo principas, kompetencijos plėtros fenomenas, ir Europos Sąjungos kompetencijos normų raida iki Lisabonos sutarties. Atlikti tolimesni nagrinėjimai parodė, kad kompetencijos suteikimas Sutartimis gali būti išreikštas eksplicistiškai ir vadovaujantis numanomų galių doktrina. Pastaroji Europos Sąjungos Teisingumo Teismo buvo praplėsta ir ne visais atvejais pagrįstai pritaikyta, kas turėjo įtakos Europos Sąjungos kompetencijos plėtrai. Kai kurios kompetencijos normos, pavyzdžiui, SESV 114 ir 352 straipsniai, nors ir yra eksplicistiškai įtvirtintos, savo plataus taikymo spektru parodo, kad ne visada Europos Sąjungos kompetencijos ribos yra aiškiai apibrėžtos. Nors Lisabonos sutartimi įtvirtinus kompetencijos kategorijas tapo aiškiau, kokiose srityse išimtinai veikia Europos Sąjunga, o kuriuose ji tik remia Valstybių Narių veiksmus, atsirado problemų dėl tam tikrų kompetencijos kategorijų sričių persidengimo. Be to, išryškėjo pasidalijamosios kompetencijos problemiškumas, nustatant, kiek konkrečioje srityje Europos Sąjunga įgyvendina savo kompetenciją, taip ribodama Valstybių Narių veikimo apimtį. Kadangi kompetenciją Europos Sąjungai Sutartimis suteikia Valstybės Narės, šiame darbe buvo apžvelgta, kaip į Europos Sąjungos Teisingumo Teismo priimtus sprendimus, nagrinėjant ginčus dėl kompetencijos pasidalijimo reaguoja Valstybės Narės. Šiuo tikslu buvo nagrinėjama Vokietijos Federacinės Respublikos Konstitucinio Teismo jurisprudencija ir Jungtinės Karalystės Parlamento ir Vyriausybės veikla. Atlikta analizė parodė, kad Valstybės Narės abejoja, ar Europos Sąjunga neviršija jai suteiktų įgaliojimų ir kad ne visus Europos Sąjungos institucijų veiksmus palaiko. Dėl to, šiame darbe iškelta hipotezė, kad Sutartyse Europos Sąjungos kompetencija nėra aiškiai apibrėžta, pasitvirtino.
Master thesis: Whether boundaries of EU competence are explicitly defined in the Treaties? The European Economic Community was established in 1957 and its purpose was purely economic – to help recover Europe after World War I and II. However, later amendments of the treaties not only extended this economical purpose to social aspects but also helped EU to become a unique institution with an independent legal system. Nevertheless, EU power to act is not limitless. As every international organization, EU competence is defined in constituent treaties. In these documents there is established essential aspects that defines how competence is conferred and exercised. If EU violates those aspects, its legal acts are void. However, competence limits should be clearly defined in order to determine the limits of competence exceeding. Otherwise, broad and ambiguous provisions leave a space for interpretation which can be used by ECJ to extend EU competence and thereby reducing the Member States' influence and sovereignty. The problematic aspect of this research reveal disputes between Member States and EU which were brought before European Court of Justice (ECJ) regarding competence issues. Even though ECJ has the power to solve such disputes, Constitutional Courts of some Member States do not agree that ECJ has a final voice, especially if there is a risk that Member States sovereignty can be infringed. After the enforcement of the Treaty of Lisbon in 2009, the role of Constitutional Courts have intensified. Moreover, Member States try so solve a problem of competence creep not only in courts, but also in legislature and executive branches of power. This shows that Member States take this problem serious and do not wait for another ECJ decision. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze whether boundaries of EU competence are explicitly defined in the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) . The subject matter of this work is provisions of the Treaties that defines boundaries of EU competence. The subject matter is focused on vertical competence and horizontal competence is not analyzed in this work. In order to achieve the purpose of this thesis were determined these objectives: (1) to review the development of EU competence provisions, (2) to reveal the conception of implied powers and what meaning it has when determining boundaries of EU competence, (3) to analyze what influence to EU competence creep have broad TFEU provisions – article 114 TFEU and article 352 TFEU, (4) to examine whether categories of the competence actually contribute when determining boundaries of EU competence and (5) to review response of Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom to EU exercise of its competence. In order to accomplish these objectives in this work are used historical, comparative, teleological, document and case law analysis legal methods. Hypothesis: boundaries of EU competence are not explicitly defined in the Treaties After accomplishing these objectives following conclusions were made: competence in the Treaties can be explicit or implied. Some explicit provisions rise disputes between EU and Member States because of their wide-open and ambiguous formulations. Most of such disputes ECJ solved in favor of EU. Because of this, Member States argue that the absence of clear boundaries is used by ECJ to extend EU competence. What is more, ECJ accepted the doctrine of implied powers into EU jurisprudence under ERTA decision and at some point made wide formulation of this doctrine even wider. Such ECJ actions were justified by the need to achieve EU task leaving behind Member States will and sovereignty. The analysis of article 114 TFEU and article 352 TFEU showed that wide scope of article application also gives uncertainty about competence boundaries. In order to set some limits to EU action there is a need to clarify areas for which broad provisions cannot be applied. Moreover, the Treaty of Lisbon established categories of competence. This clarified when EU has exclusive competence and when it just can support Member States. However this raised problems of demarcation in overlapping areas, for instance, internal market and custom unions. Besides, this exposed the problem of determining shared competence, because it is not clear how much power has EU already exercised. Whereas Member States confer competence to EU by the Treaties, in this work was examined Member States’ reaction to ECJ decisions regarding competence disputes. Due to this was analyzed jurisprudence of Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (GCC) and actions of Parliament and Government of the United Kingdom. This analysis revealed that Member States are concerned whether EU is not acting ultra vires and showed that Member States are not supporting all the actions of the EU institutions. Due to this, the hypothesis of this work that boundaries of EU competence are not explicitly defined in the Treaties was confirmed. |
