ABSTRACT
Despite the EU not having a general competence to regulate private law, its continued reliance on elements of private law as an instrument for establishing the internal market has resulted in an increasingly growing body of EU law governing the private relationships of natural and legal persons. EU private law, consisting primarily of EU secondary legislation as interpreted by the Court of Justice of the European Union, has a significant impact on the national private law systems of the EU Member States. Apart from the complex interactions between EU law and national laws, one of the common characteristics of the national private law systems in the EU is also the visible influence of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) on the national provisions of sales law and of the general part of contract law. The introductory chapter provides a brief overview of the themes covered in this volume and presents the summaries of the contributions that follow.
