As you are aware, sport is not yet a Community competence.

Furthermore, quite a large number of questions are not related to issues falling under Community competence.

Primary law does not, therefore, recognise this Community competence.

But there are other Community competences that should not go now to the intergovernmental arm.

There are moreover several large 'grey areas', where the borderline between national and Community competence is not always clear.

Does he accept that there should be Community competence in that sphere?

Moreover, legal issues, such as those arising from the extent of existing Community competence, would have to be taken into account.

Some of these areas are matters of Community competence, others unfortunately are not.

The House has been rightly concerned at the creeping extension of Community competence over the last few years.

It is high time that there was a Community competence for health policy, and I mean in the Treaty.

If ratified, it would signal a massive official expansion of Community competence into non-economic areas.

It is also clear that the Community per se does not have Community competence in criminal issues.

Fourthly, there will be no extension of Community competence in employer-employee relations - the so-called social area.

There are no means to enforce respect for agreed judicial assistance measures, as there would be if the area fell within Community competence.

Community competence has been proposed as an outcome of community social network and community participation interventions.

Thirdly, in some areas - notably health protection, educational exchanges, vocational training and culture - we have defined Community competence clearly for the first time.

Furthermore, it deals with basic principles of civil law, which is not one of the areas of Community competence.

As the House knows, there was strong pressure over many months for all aspects of co-operation to come within European Community competence.

There is no Community competence.

Mention of Community competences leads me to refer to the Convention, which, to a large degree, works with a view to legal continuity.

This will remain outside Community competence and therefore a matter for intergovernmental co-operation, with all substantive decisions being made by unanimity.

In any case, it is important that we succeed in establishing a fundamental concept: these issues fall strictly within the sphere of Community competence.

It will be the motivation for me and my staff in negotiating on behalf of the EU, where the issue is within Community competence.

Last, but certainly not least, it would create another executive within the Council which would end up generating confusion between Community competences.

Taxation and property laws that lie at the origin of the complexity fall largely outside the scope of Community competence.