Every year European companies are estimated to be loosing around 26 billion euros of because of the obstacles caused by divergent regulations in contract law applying to sales between member states. In order to overcome some of these problems, the Commission has proposed common rules in sales law that will provide higher level of protection and facilitate transactions between member states.

According to the proposal put forward by the European Commission for a new common European sales law, new common standards in European sales will apply only if buyer and seller expressly and voluntarily agree to it. This means that, if the European traders offer their products on-line under the new Common European Sales Law, consumers would be entitled to choose a user-friendly European contract with a high level of protection.

New EU rules on contract law would apply to any cross-border contracts, and it will be for member states to decide whether or not to apply them to domestic transactions. According to the Commission's proposal, these rules would apply if one of the two parts of the contract is established in a member state, either the buyer or seller. New EU Sales Law would apply to contracts for the sale of goods as well as digital content contracts, and would be applicable both for B2B and B2C transactions.

These new rules will benefit both businesses and consumers, helping to facilitate intra-Community transactions by providing a common system for businesses and reducing costs, while allowing buyers to benefit from the same level of protection and greater transparency in all EU countries. This will mean that consumers will have access to a whole range of products at lower prices, also benefiting from greater security in these transactions. While it is expected that these new rules will generally contribute to increase the share of 9.3% of European companies that currently sale their products in different countries of the Union, SMEs will undoubtedly be one of the most benefited from these new common rules.

The proposal presented by the Commission is based on the results of a feasibility study conducted by a group of experts regarding the potential for unification of EU contract law, as well as on the results of a public consultation which questioned EU stakeholders and citizens on that issue.