ABSTRACT
The European Union, of which the longer established European Community (EC) forms part, is an international organisation which has evolved into a uniquely sophisticated and complex system for securing peaceful and prosperous co-existence among the States of Europe. The application of Community 'negative law' to sweep away obstructive national law serves the consumer interest in the sense that it contributes to the integrative process of which the consumer is theoretically the ultimate beneficiary. There is a consumer interest in free trade and in deregulating national markets within the wider European market. Subsidiarity, a creature of the Maastricht Treaty, serves as a slogan for a politically complex debate about how the European market is most efficiently regulated. The disagreement highlights the need to discuss the function of Community legislation as a supplement to primary Treaty provisions in the development of EC consumer policy.
