The Cambridge Companion to European Union Private Law

Well into its teens by now, the private law of the European Union has its own companion. The very appearance of a publication of this sort is indeed a coming-of-age moment for a discipline whose existence was hard to fathom until the 1980s. Member states’ judges and lawyers have come full circle, from resisting European Union private law as an intrusion into a quintessentially national sphere, to embracing it as a natural consequence of market integration. The question is no longer whether or not to approximate the private laws of the member states. The question is how to do it. This remarkable shift in attitude is the result of relentless efforts spearheaded by the Commission in the name of a seamless market.