ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the European Union has been working to develop a European business rescue culture. The new initiative toward a European Capital Markets Union, however, has the capacity to broaden the scope of the discussion about whether to harmonize substantial insolvency laws. The European Parliament requested the European Commission to submit legislative proposals on a selected number of topics relating to "insolvency proceedings in the context of EU company law." By the end of 2012, major EU institutions had expressed their determination for a harmonization of substantive national insolvency laws and laid down specific areas to start with. The push for a harmonized European restructuring framework described earlier was accompanied by the efforts and discussions on the decennial revision of the EIR. Developments on the European level have been driven by the political need to overcome a staggering economic crisis that is characterized by unbearable levels of public and private debt.
