EU: TFEU Competences

The Treaty of Lisbon re-names one of the Treaties and re-arranges the contents of the Treaties.

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Under Common provisions, the intergovernmental conference (IGC 2007) repealed the Articles 1 and 2 of the Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC) and inserted an Article 1a into the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU):

Article 1a TFEU – future Article 1 TFEU

1. This Treaty organises the functioning of the Union and determines the areas of, delimitation of, and arrangements for exercising its competences.

2. This Treaty and the Treaty on European Union constitute the Treaties on which the Union is founded. These two Treaties, which have the same legal value, shall be referred to as “the Treaties”.

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The existing Article 1 TEC concerns the establishment of the European Community, which is being abolished by the Treaty of Lisbon and replaced by the all-encompassing European Union (EU). Therefore a referral to the new organisational and treaty structure seems to be in order.

The current Article 2 TEC refers to main tasks (goals) of the EC such as economic development, employment and social protection, as well as means to attain them, like the common market and economic and monetary union. These are shifted to and given a more systematic approach in the new Articles 2a and 2b TFEU.

The introductory provision of the TFEU connects the two amended Treaties, and it states in a low key the main themes for the rest of the TFEU: the functioning of the EU and the competences, the areas where the EU has powers, the different kinds of powers and how the EU goes about using them.


Ralf Grahn