"Regulatory Strategies on Services Contracts in EC Law" [2009] ELECD 312; in Cafaggi, Fabrizio; Muir Watt, Horatia (eds), "The Regulatory Function of European Private Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: The Regulatory Function of European Private Law

Editor(s): Cafaggi, Fabrizio; Muir Watt, Horatia

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201997

Section: Chapter 2

Section Title: Regulatory Strategies on Services Contracts in EC Law

Number of pages: 46

Extract:

2. Regulatory strategies on services
contracts in EC law
Hans-W. Micklitz

1. PURPOSE AND BACKGROUND
The idea of the chapter is to show how and by what means the European
Community is attempting to realize its overall policy to establish and accom-
plish the internal market for services, and more particularly how this policy
which is meant to open up markets affects the contractual relations between
the supplier and the customer, whether the latter be a professional or a
consumer. This implies that contractual relationships at the primary market for
financial services are excluded from the scope of analysis.1 The European
Community relies, as usual, on a piecemeal approach. There is no such thing
as a uniform strategy, if one sets aside the internal market rhetoric. Regulation
of services is very much following different patterns in different areas of the
economic sector. I have chosen a particularly European perspective, as the
European Community has become by far the most important regulator.
Member States are more or less in a retroactive position. It is still the White
Paper on the Completion of the Internal Market2 which legitimizes the initia-
tives of the European Commission. European law defines the bottom line of
the respective markets for services. National legislators have to implement the
European rules. They benefit from a different degree of leeway with regard to
shaping contractual relations. However, the chapter does not intend to give a
full picture of the Member States' regulatory strategies to confirm or to ...