Co-operative federalism constitutionalised: the emergence of complementary competences in the EC legal order

Abstract:

Beyond the core areas of European integration, the federal division of legislative powers between the European Community and the Member States has long been characterised by a co-operative federalism: national legislators will typically be entitled to complement the common Community standard. Since the Single European Act, this philosophy of co-operative federalism has increasingly been "constitutionalised": ever more legislative competences constitutionally limit the power of the Community legislator to intervene in a particular policy field. The article traces the emergence of these complementary competences. It then examines the Community's environmental and public health policies in an attempt to analyse the constitutional regime governing these complementary competences. The article concludes that many central constitutional choices are still to be made by the European Court of Justice, in particular, whether there are hard or soft constitutional limits around the Community's complementary competences.