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Collins, Hugh --- "Governance Implications for the European Union of the Changing Character of Private Law" [2008] ELECD 199; in Cafaggi, Fabrizio; Muir Watt, Horatia (eds), "Making European Private Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: Making European Private Law

Editor(s): Cafaggi, Fabrizio; Muir Watt, Horatia

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201980

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: Governance Implications for the European Union of the Changing Character of Private Law

Author(s): Collins, Hugh

Number of pages: 18

Extract:

12. Governance implications for the
European Union of the changing
character of private law
Hugh Collins
How should the European Union develop and maintain an appropriate system
of private law? This broad question makes a number of contestable assump-
tions, not least that the European Union should be meddling with private law
at all. Although this chapter touches indirectly on the issues of the compe-
tence, utility, and legitimacy of proposals for development of European private
law,1 its central focus concerns more detailed and consequential issues that
arise once the decision to embark on the creation of European private law has
been taken. Following that momentous decision, the question becomes: how
should such projects for harmonisation or approximation of all or part of
private law be managed and developed in the European Union?
More particularly, is the task confronting Europe today basically the same
as that undertaken by nation states in the nineteenth century? Following that
experience, when legislators and scholars constructed systemic elaborations of
private law rules and principles, usually in the form of a code, a method which
was subsequently copied around the world, should the European Union aim to


1 The European Commission makes several proposals that fall short of full
uniformity in private law in: Communication from the Commission to the European
Parliament and the Council, European Contract Law and the revision of the acquis: the
way forward, Brussels, 11.10.2004, COM (2004) 651 final. The European Parliament
has, however, resolved on many occasions ...