The EU as a federal order of competences and the private law

This chapter first discusses regulatory private law in general and European regulatory private law in particular. It then uses three parameters — ‘scope’, ‘limits’, and ‘intensity’ — to examine the relationship between the two legal orders as it stands today with the possible impact of the Lisbon Treaty on the competence order. It considers the issue of ‘intensity’; that the EU has intensified its grip on national law by shifting the focus from minimum to maximum harmonization. It discusses whether the maximum harmonization of private law matters affects ‘essential state functions’ and infringes the Member States' ‘national identities’