Report

The Community is progressively espanding its legislation in the area of private international law. This progressive expansion of the internal competence of the Community may easily lead to an affirmation of its external competence, thus leaving no role to Member States in exercising external powers in any situation where private international law issues area dealt with in the Community legal instruments. In the Opinion 1/03, on the conclusion of the revised Lugano Convention on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters, delivered on February 7, 2006, the European Court’s reasoning centres exactly on the question of the extent of the Community’ s competence. In doing so, the Court divides its reasoning into two parts. First, it sets out the principles which determine the exclusive nature of the Community’s competence to conclude international agreements. Second, based on these principles, the Court analyses the competence of the Community to conclude the new Lugano Convention. The report tries to resume the Court’s reasoning, according to which the conclusion of the new Lugano Convention falls entirely within the sphere of the exclusive competence of the European Community.