The development of a European civil code has primarily focused on creating a unified law of contracts.
[2] At the same time UNIDROIT began similar studies leading to their 1994 publication Principles for International Commercial Contracts.
The years following this conference have seen the development of many academic groups focusing on different areas of private law.
Following the review of submissions on the Communication, the Commission released an Action Plan for a more coherent European contract law in 2003.
"[6] Economist Gerhard Wagner hailed "the drafting of a coherent set of rules" for all of Europe, such as the DCFR, as "an immense scientific achievement".
The creation of individual codes for discrete areas of private law is considered the most feasible and realistic goal.
This gives an indication of how long it may take to create a complete unified European civil code.
The March 2006 European Parliament resolution recommended taking the new Dutch civil code as a model as well.
Included in this are claims that the creation of a civil code binding across the European Union will be impossible to achieve.
As a much broader project, the creation of a European civil code is more easily dismissed than attempts at unifying discrete areas such as contract law.
Proponents also point out that Europe, including England, shares a long legal history in the form of the ius commune before the 18th and 19th century national codifications.
[10][11] Besides, except for England and Ireland, all of Europe shares the civil law tradition which began with the Napoleonic Code of 1804.
More substantive difficulties, which for some are reasons why it is neither feasible nor desirable to create a European civil code, include: In April 2017, after Theresa May triggered Article 50 for the UK, Guy Verhofstadt remarked that "it was naïve, maybe, to reconcile the legal system of Napoleon with the common law of the British Empire, and perhaps it was never meant to be.
Although there were many submissions supporting both fields of thought, most favoured a review of the Acquis as a basis for developing European contract law.
The CFR is hoped by some to form the central part of a future unified European contract law, although this is not its purpose.