Who does what?

As the European Union (EU) matures, there is an increasing debate, partly fuelled by fierce national criticism offered by Eurosceptic politicians, partly initiated by the EU institutions themselves, on the way in which the EU has developed and what the EU must look like in the future. This debate includes a discussion on one of the core aspects of European integration: at which level should the rules be set and who decides where the authority to do so should lie? Private law has an important role to play in this discussion. Many private law rules touch on the core of the internal market as they serve to foster trade or to offer protection to market participants, such as consumers. In 2011, the Maastricht European Private Law Institute (M-EPLI) was founded. M-EPLI researchers combine European Private Law scholarship in the fields of contract, property, commercial and procedural law as well as legal theory. In this book M-EPLI fellows present perspectives on the allocation of competences in European Private Law.