The Study Group on a European Civil Code

The Study Group has had the benefit of Working (or Research) Teams — groups of younger legal scholars under the supervision of a senior member of the Group (a Team Leader). The Teams undertook the basic comparative legal research, developed the drafts for discussion and assembled the extensive material required for the notes. To each Working Team was allocated a consultative body — an Advisory Council. These bodies — deliberately kept small in the interests of efficiency — were formed from leading experts in the relevant field of law, who represented the major European legal systems. The proposals drafted by the Working Teams and critically scrutinised and improved in a series of meetings by the respective Advisory Council were submitted for discussion on a revolving basis to the actual decision-making body of the Study Group on a European Civil Code, the Co-ordinating Group. Until June 2004 the Co-ordinating Group consisted of representatives from all the jurisdictions belonging to the EU immediately prior to its enlargement in Spring 2004 and in addition legal scholars from Estonia, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Slovenia and Switzerland. Representatives from the Czech Republic, Malta, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia joined us after the June 2004 meeting in Warsaw and representatives from Bulgaria and Romania after the December 2006 meeting in Lucerne. Besides its permanent members, other participants in the Co-ordinating Group with voting rights included all the Team Leaders and — when the relevant material was up for discussion — the members of the Advisory Council concerned. The results of the deliberations during the week-long sittings of the Co-ordinating Group were incorporated into the text of the Articles and the commentaries which returned to the agenda for the next meeting of the Co-ordinating Group (or the next but one depending on the work load of the Group and the Team affected). Each part of the project was the subject of debate on manifold occasions, some stretching over many years. Where a unanimous opinion could not be achieved, majority votes were taken.