This article is about reaching a closing door before it shuts. The door in question is the academic and institutional approach which has been taken since 1971 to the Court of Justice’s seminal decision on the Community’s implied external competence in Case Commission v. Council (the ‘AETR’ case). A recent study of the rules enunciated by the Court is prefaced by an apologetic justification for daring to trespass on the sacred ground of the old authorities, exemplifying the sclerotic complacency which now seems to characterise disquisition in the field. There is much to be regretted in this, since it is by no means clear some thirty years after the AETR decision that the correct analysis of those authorities has been unearthed. It is hoped that there is still room for debate on the matter.