Parliament Committee Opposes Harmonised EU Contract Law

The European Union Committee of the House of Lords has published

a report rejecting a proposal to have a harmonised form of contract

law at EU level. In December 2007, the European Commission

published a draft Common Frame of Reference for European contract

law as part of the Commission's plan to make European contract

law more coherent. That Frame of Reference was very much a first

step in a long potential road towards creating a uniform contract

law basis across the EU. The House of Lords Committee said it

believed that harmonisation would not be a good idea. It stated

that there were major differences between English law and the

proposed draft laws, such as the concept of contract, pre-contract

negotiations and the rules of mistake. The Committee opposed use of

the Frame of Reference as a harmonised law, an optional instrument

or a set of standard terms and conditions. The one possibility that

the Committee did not rule out was using the Frame of Reference as

a toolbox for European legislators to draw upon where applicable

with new legislation. However, overall, the Committee was strongly

against the EU having an interventionist approach to contract law.

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