Competence

The EU Constitution proposes a, partly new, division of EU competences:

• exclusive EU competences -  Member States have no right to legislate on their own.
• shared competences - Member States can legislate as long as the Union has not legislated. When the Union does legislate, EU law suppress national law.
• supporting, coordinating and supplementing competences: the EU cannot harmonise laws, but it can adopt legally binding rules all the same. 

In all areas in which the EU has no clearly defined competence, the competence should remain with the Member States according to the principle of conferred powers.

Links

See Categories of competence.

See the reader friendly edition of the EU Constitution with highlights, remarks in the margin, plus a great index to help you move around: http://www.euabc.com/upload/pd......f/draft/rf_constitution_en.pdf