Wednesday 29 September 2010

Plus ça change...

"We will ensure that there is no further transfer of sovereignty or powers over the course of the next Parliament."
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Those were the exact words of the coalition agreement. Now, something that the EU has never managed to do is take away from the UK Parliament and Courts jurisdiction over contract law. That isn't going to stop them trying though, hence the Ministry of Justice (run by Euro-enthusiast Ken Clarke last time I looked) is now obliged to ask you your view on having an EC directive on contract law.
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"A Directive on European Contract Law could harmonise national contract law on the basis of minimum common standards. Member States would be able to retain more protective rules, subject to compliance with the Treaty. It could also be foreseen that the resulting differences are notified to the Commission and then published to increase transparency for consumers and businesses operating across borders."
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From the EC Green Paper.

3 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

I took the liberty of adding a cidilla, hope that's OK.

The key is "minimum standards", so it can be sold as "consumer protection" which is Political Gold, however, going by experience, the corresponding burden on business will always fall more heavily on small businesses than on large businesses.

Steven_L said...

The directive route is only option 5 I'm afraid MW, option 6 is:

A Regulation establishing a European Contract Law could replace the diversity of national laws with a uniform European set of rules, including mandatory rules affording a high level of protection for the weaker party. These rules would apply to contracts not upon a choice by the parties, but as a matter of national law.

And option 7:

This solution goes one step further than the Regulation establishing a European Contract Law, in the sense that it would cover not only contract law, but also other types of obligations (e.g. tort law and benevolent intervention). Such an instrument would reduce even further the need to fall back onto national provisions.

ukipwebmaster said...

"We will ensure that there is no further transfer of sovereignty or powers over the course of the next Parliament".
Yeah right:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1VfjWc8wo0