Bye Bye BGB?

With the enlargement of the EU in May 2004 to now twenty-five members, the community faces new challenges related to legal diversity. The success of the internal market and e-commerce also means that in a growing number of cases people have to deal with international private law and thus sometimes foreign law. Is the harmonisation of European private law the best solution to meet the challenges resulting from this development? Given Passau’s location at the heart of the new EU, students of the local ELSA group (The European Law Students’ Association) intend to debate this question in an international three-day conference from 28-30 October 2005. The event will be held under the patronage of the Bavarian Minister of Justice, Dr. Beate Merk.

Although the idea of a European Civil Code is fairly new, the Europeanisation of private law has already become a reality. Nowadays more than half of all private legislation is created in Brussels. However, most of this legislation has been adopted in the form of rather vague directives, which had to be implemented into national law – a process which has not reduced legal diversity, but rather made the situation more complicated. For this reason, the European Commission in February of 2003 has launched the "action plan on a more coherent European contract law", which aims at the elaboration of a common frame of reference (CFR). The CFR will not only provide uniform rules, but also a common terminology. It is destined to help the European institutions to improve the coherence of the legislation coming from Brussels. However, on the long run, the CFR might also serve as the basis for a so-called "optional instrument", i.e. a set of rules which contracting partners can opt-in to, leaving the otherwise applicable law apart. But will this suffice? It is important to note that the idea of a European Private Law dates further back than the political initiatives the European institutions are now taking. For more than two decades, comparative law scholars have been examining the different private law systems in Europe. A milestone in this field of research was  Ole Lando’s commentary "The Principles of European Contract Law", published in the 1990’s (part I and II) and in 2003 (part III). However, the scope of research is not restricted to contract law. Nowadays, various groups of academics all over Europe are analysing subjects as different as European tort law and European Family law. And the aims of these scholarly initiatives are as diverse as their fields of research. While some of them merely want to assemble common principles which could guide a future legislator, others, like the Academy of European Private Lawyers in Pavia, have actually elaborated a Contract Law Code, containing a closed set of rules.

The conference Bye-bye BGB? Towards a European Civil Code will focus on the area of contract law, although the harmonisation in other fields may be mentioned in some of the lectures. The conference is composed of a public opening lecture and two main parts. In the introductory lecture,  Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Dr. h.c. Reinhard Zimmermann (Max Planck Institute for Foreign Private and Private International Law) will address the significance of comparative law for the Europeanisation of private law, giving the auditorium an introduction into the different legal systems existing on our continent. In the two main parts of the conference, this Europeanisation will be examined in more detail. The first part will describe the actual status quo – how does business in the internal market function nowadays? The first speaker in this part will be  Dr. Werner Wellhöfer (CMS Hasche Sigle), a lawyer in an international law firm. He will explain in how far legal diversity influences his day-to-day work and whether this diversity really is an obstacle to cross-border trade. Afterwards,  PD Dr. Christoph U. Schmid (European University Institute, Florence) will describe levels, instruments and actors of the current harmonisation process, putting a particular emphasis on the role of the judiciary. The next two lectures will subsequently analyse in how far national provisions have already been harmonised. The unification of legal provisions in the area of International Private Law and Procedural Law will be presented by  Prof. Dr. Eva-Maria Kieninger(Wuerzburg University) who will focus on the Brussels I-Regulation from 2001 and the Rome Convention 1980. Then   PD Dr. Bettina Heiderhoff (Leipzig University) will speak about the harmonisation of substantial law having taken place so far, especially through the consumer protection directives.

The second main part of the conference consists of an outlook on the future: Are we moving towards a European Civil Code?  Dr. Susanne Knöfel (European Commission, DG Health and Consumer Protection, Protection of legal economic and other consumer interests) will tell the audience which political initiatives have been taken so far, starting with the initial Commission communication of 2001, which led up to the Action Plan 2003. The various scholarly initiatives will be summarized and compared by  Prof. Dr. Christina Ramberg (Gothenburg University), who is herself a member of the Study Group on a European Civil Code. Through the following lecture by  Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Giuseppe Gandolfi (Academy of European Private Lawyers, Pavia), the participants will gain a closer insight into the work and the working method of one of those groups in particular. The conference will close with a public panel discussion bearing the title: "A European Civil Code – Utopia or Possibility?"  Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Ole Lando (Copenhagen Business School), the father of the Principles of European Contract Law, and  Prof. Dr. Dr. Pierre Legrand (University Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne), a fierce opponent of the communitarization of private law, will explain their positions on the issue in two short introductory statements. Then the whole audience is invited to join the debate.

The lectures will be complemented by workshops for the participants as well as a broad social programme, including a guided tour through the city of Passau and a European night. The conference is open to law students and young practitioners from all over Europe; the working language will be English only.

 Bye Bye BGB? - Powerpoint presentation
 The speakers
 The programme
 Registration
 Fotos
 e-mail to european-contract-law@elsa-passau.de