Principle of conferral

The principle of conferral (Article 5 TEU) states that institutions of the European Union or the European Atomic Energy Community may adopt rules of law only if they are, to explicitly authorized by the Treaties, the so-called primary law. Thus, the EU can not arbitrarily take competences in itself, it has no competence - competence. Each of the EU legislation therefore always requires an explicit basis in the Treaties. Moreover, the legislative power rests with the Member States.

The individual States agree by an authorization in international treaties of primary Community law, to waive a portion of their sovereignty and to transfer these to the competence of the EU. In Germany, this transfer takes place in Article 23 of the Basic Law their constitutional legitimacy.

The European Court always been emphasized in its decisions the validity of the principle of conferral. However, he put the authorizations contained in the contracts previously reviewed in favor of the competences of the European Union far from.

Thus the principle of conferral is complemented by the Implied Powers Doctrine. This states that the measures provided for in the Treaties competency standards also cover the facts, without which the competency standards can not make sense be applied.