A Single European Contract Law?

The European Commission is currently consulting on this idea, which EU Justice Minister Viviane Reding describes as “an historic opportunity to drive economic growth by easing the cost of cross-border transactions” and an opportunity to “make a quantum leap towards a more European contract law.”

A full range of options is on the table, from non-binding model rules to implementation via Directive or Regulation, or even as part of a fully-fledged European Civil Code, which would doubtless require a new Treaty.

Not everyone sees this idea as a boon, however. Ken Clarke has described it as an “Esperanto fallacy” and the idea is opposed by, amongst others, the Law Society, who are alive to the potential threat to UK legal firms posed by a potential European Civil Code.

This story is just full of material for law students. For example:

...for AS students, this is an example of Law Reform, probably via codification. It is also an example of a potential threat to Parliamentary Sovereignty and AS students studying EU law could perhaps be asked to examine its potential impact if implemented via Directive, Regulation or Treaty.

For A2 Contract students, this is an interesting proposal to reform the law on commerical agreements to create certainty at the expense of the common law with potential for synoptic links to ideas such as Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Rule of Law.

Viviane Reding explains matters in this video and the Guardian takes a look at the wider ramifications of the proposal here.