HARMONISATION OF EUROPEAN CONTRACT LAW: SLOWLY BUT SURELY?
HARMONISATION OF EUROPEAN CONTRACT LAW: SLOWLY BUT SURELY?

Summary/Abstract: This paper deals with the harmonisation of European Contract Law from a gradual point of view. The main objective is to show the different academic and official steps carried out in this field. The so called Commission on European Contract Law under the leadership of Professor Ole Lando was the starting point in 1982. Some international research teams set up by European scholars and lawyers have been devoted to this aim for two decades. Time and effort have been made in the academic level to get a serious advance on bringing closer contractual national rules. This bottom-up approach met a stronger support in the last years although the European Parliament had “requested” the creation of a European Civil Code already in 1989. The momentous time comes in 2010 with a Green Paper from the European Commission on policy options for progress towards a European Contract Law for consumers and businesses. This Green Paper opened a public consultation period in 2011 and afterwards an expert group was appointed to draft a feasibility study for a future Instrument in European Contract Law. After all, a Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a Common European Sales Law was adopted in October 2011 arising not few doubts, worries and misgivings from different points of view. This will be not the last step in this process.

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