ABSTRACT
As the text of Article 5 makes clear, where the Community has ‘exclusive competence’, the subsidiarity principle has no application. The Community has sole power of decision and therefore no question arises as to whether others share that power, or the extent to which they should be entitled to act. However, many issues remain unclear from the text of the Treaty. For example, there is no definition as to what areas fall within the Community’s exclusive competence, and the Commission itself has accepted that there is ‘no clear line of demarcation between exclusive and shared power’. On the other hand, it is generally accepted that common agricultural and commercial policies and aspects of common fisheries policies fall within the exclusive competence of the Union. Furthermore, the Commission argued that even where exclusive power exists, it does not mean that ‘all responsibility for the activity in question is covered by exclusive competence. The text of the Treaty cannot be interpreted so broadly as to leave common sense out of account’.38
