"Private Law: The Path to Europe" – Current Institute Research on the Harmonisation of Private Law in the European Union
01.07.2010
Among recent projects and initiatives undertaken by the Institute in respect of the harmonisation of private law in the European Union, of particular note are the Handwörterbuch des Europäischen Privatrechts (Encyclopaedia of European Union Private Law), published in 2009, and the Institute’s Comments on the European Commission Succession Proposal. Such projects demonstrate that the growing inter-connectivity shared by the society and the economy is transforming legal unification inside of the EU into a topic of relevance well beyond juristic circles.In this same vein, this year’s Hamburger Europawoche (Hamburg Europe Week) afforded the Institute an opportunity to open their doors to the public on 3 May 2010 for an evening lecture series titled “Privatrecht auf dem Weg nach Europa” (Private Law:The Path to Europe). Presenting current research findings, the following topics were addressed and discussed with members of the audience.
In his talk titled “One Europe, One Private Law – The Quest for Unification of European Private Law”, Sebastian Martens provided an overview of the lines of development being pursued by the European Commission and the Members States and also of the academic conception being crafted in parallel. After presenting and differentiating the sometimes contradictory efforts in these regards, he concluded with a critical examination of the Commission’s project for a new Consumer Directive.
In his lecture “European Integration and National Private Law after the Treaty of Lisbon: The Role of Private International Law”, Anatol Dutta addressed existing and anticipated legal instruments from the European legislator in the area of private international law. He focussed in particular upon the challenges posed by Europeanisation of private international law which, above all, marks an increasing re-nationalisation of the political process, a materialisation of individual fields of private international law and pointillism on the part of the European legislator.
Frauke Wedemann concluded the evening’s presentation by considering a project of the European Commission in the area of company law in her contribution “The European-GmbH ante portas”. The Commission’s July 2008 proposal for a statute creating the “Societas Privata Europaea” (SPE) is seen as representing the European pendant of the German GmbH. Wedemann outlined the hurdles that this new company form faces and summarised the most important compromises struck in the proposal. In her conclusion, she offered a critical perspective of the tendency to forsake uniform European solutions in respect of controversial areas and instead subject a SPE to the national law norms of the company seat.