Article 105 [Role of the Commission]

The Treaty does not provide detailed enforcement rules for Articles 101 and 102 TFEU (➔ Article 101 TFEU para 9, ➔ Article 102 TFEU para 3). Instead, it establishes a broad enforcement framework in Article 103 TFEU (➔ Article 103 TFEU para 1–2), Article 104 TFEU (➔ Article 104 TFEU) and Article 105 TFEU. Detailed enforcement rules are to be legislated by the Council under Article 103 TFEU (➔ Article 103 TFEU para 1–4), and until such time as this legislation is enacted, the MS authorities under Article 104 TFEU (➔ Article 104 TFEU para 1–5), along with the Commission under Article 105 TFEU, are responsible for the provisional or transitional enforcement of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU. In the original wording of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, then Article 89 TEEC specified: ‘Without prejudice to Article 88 the Commission shall as soon as it takes up its duties ensure the application of the principles laid down in Articles 85 and 86.’ The words ‘as soon as it takes up its duties’ are considered to be suggestive that this provision was of a temporal nature, allowing the Commission to enforce the competition law provisions of the Treaty until such time as the Council implemented the Article 103 TFEU enforcement legislation (➔ Article 103 TFEU para 1–2). The words ‘as soon as it takes up its duties’ were removed by the amending Treaty of Amsterdam 1997, indicating that albeit a temporary or transitory power, the Commission has in fact a ‘permanent residual power to intervene’ (➔ para 5).