4 An academic, not a politically authorised text

It must be stressed that what we refer to today as the DCFR originates in an initiative of European legal scholars. It amounts to the compression into rule form of decades of independent research and co-operation by academics with expertise in private law, comparative law and European Community law. The independence of the two Groups and of all the contributors has been maintained and respected unreservedly at every stage of our labours. That in turn has made it possible to take on board many of the suggestions received in the course of a large number of meetings with stakeholders and other experts throughout the continent. The two Groups alone, however, bear responsibility for the content of this volume. In particular, it does not contain a single rule or definition or principle which has been approved or mandated by a politically legitimated body at European or national level (save, of course, where it coincides with existing EU or national legislation). It may be that at a later point in time the DCFR will be carried over at least in part into a CFR, but that is a question for others to decide. This introduction merely sets out some considerations which might usefully be taken into account during the possible process of transformation.