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List of contents
1. Impact Assessments in EU Contract Law
Esther van Schagen and Stephen Weatherill
2. The REFIT Process in the Area of Consumer Protection: Odds Stacked Against Consumers
Christine Riefa
3. REFIT or Rethink – The Politics of EU Research – A Grand Misunderstanding?
Hans-W Micklitz and Aurélie A Villanueva
4. EU Financial Regulation, Contract Law and Sustainable Consumer Finance
Olha O Cherednychenko
5. The Fitness Check of EU Consumer Law and the Impact Assessment for the New Deal for EU Consumers
Esther van Schagen
6. The Court as a Jack-in-the-box – An Old Story in a New Context
Stephen Weatherill
7. ‘Better’ Enforcement of EU Consumer Law: Exploring Responsive Enforcement
Esther van Schagen
8. European Standardisation and the Unfair Contract Terms Directive
Barend van Leeuwen
9. Good Governance and the Fitness Check of EU Consumer Law
Aurelia Colombi Ciacchi
About the author
Esther van Schagen is Lecturer at the Molengraaf Instituut, Utrecht University.Stephen Weatherill is the Jacques Delors Professor of European Law at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Somerville College.
Photo courtesy of Faculty of Law, University of Oxford.
Summary
This book is the first to provide a critical investigation of EU better regulation from the perspective of EU contract law. The Commission’s ‘New Deal for EU Consumers’ is one of the first EU contract law initiatives to implement both the newly revised Better Regulation Guidelines and the newly introduced combined evaluation of multiple Directives in the form of a ‘fitness check’. This offers an opportunity to explore difficulties and best practices at a national level, as demonstrated by experience with the EU’s Unfair Terms Directive. Both the fitness check and the impact assessment accompanying the New Deal should facilitate critical reflection on the design of EU contract law.
This book addresses key questions. Do impact assessments favour business interests at the expense of a high level of consumer protection? Is the evaluation of EU contract law and the analysis in impact assessments in line with scientific standards? Has the fitness check revealed difficulties and success stories with EU measures at national level, and thereby facilitated an in-depth scrutiny of the design of EU contract law? Ultimately, is the potential of better regulation being realised?
Foreword
Important assessment of the impact of the Better Regulation Agenda on EU contract law by leading lawyers in field
