What is the role played by Community jurisdictions in the process of the harmonisation of European commercial law?
H.L.: “Community jurisdictions are an essential factor in substantive economic law in Europe, particularly in competition law, and this in two ways. On the one hand, they maintain direct contacts with national judges and authorities, which are organised in highly efficient networks with a view to comparing and contrasting the kind of problems encountered. More fundamentally, deliberations make it possible to compare national judicial traditions; individual judges propose the approach with which they are familiar in order to contribute to a collegial elaboration of the Community response which, in normal circumstances, will retain the best – or, in other words, the most acceptable – of what the various systems have to offer.The harmonisation of judicial thinking requires flexibility, informal procedures, and time, rather than institutional initiatives which may well come up against resistance from the proponents of various national traditions. We should not forget that, in spite of the
