The European Economic Constitution and the Constitutional Dimension of Private Law

Abstract Intervening in the debate about the future of the European Union and the need for a balanced economic constitution that will consolidate a distinctive European social model, the essay argues that private law shares constitutional qualities with other public law sources such as abstract declarations of social and political rights, and that the construction of European private law is a necessary ingredient of the project for establishing a European economic constitution. In making this argument, the essay examines the concept of an economic constitution, its relation to the idea of a private law society, and the criticisms that have been made of the existing European economic constitution that it is unbalanced.