within the European Union) leads to simple rules. This seems to confirm that the race" is indeed one toward some common legal denominator barnard shows however that there is little evidence so far of this phenomenon in Europe. She identifies six conditions that have to be met if a race to the bottom is to emerge. Among these conditions are a wide choice of different jurisdictions (like more than 50 legal systems in the United States)and full knowledge of each jurisdictions characteristics. These requirements are not met in Europe, where there are only 16 jurisdictions and where it is often difficult to obtain the necessary information about the respective legal systems. From the evolutionary perspective, a race to the bottom is however likely to emerge if these two requirements are met in the future. As to the first requirement, the enlargement of the European Union with Eastern-European states would imply that the differences between the various systems could very well increase. A migration of companies toward systems with lesser standards than the present member-states is then likely to occur. In order to meet the condition of full knowledge of all the European jurisdictions, there is a need for more comparative law study The only barrier for a true race to the bottom would be constituted by the minimum standards of law, set by the European Unions directives and regulations. However: the fact that these standards are a barrier to evolution can also be explained by evolutionary theory: the path that traced out in the past, has- in Europe- been one of not only giving economic considerations the upper hand. A social policy has always been part of the European venture. In this sense, the investments already made in this policy would be too costly (perhaps not only in a social or cultural sense, but also in a financial sense in that it would entail large costs of changing the present legal position of workers, unemployed, and so on )to deviate from That not all of the present social guarantees in the European legal systems(namely those that guarantee more than the European minimum standards) will be kept intact, is however inevitable. Hayek is right when he stresses that legal rules may have come into being through historical accident, but that natural selection decides which rules are to survive. The natural selection process then chooses between competing groups of humans, letting survive those groups European venture of creating a common market then necessarily implies that it is the group of those who are best able to operate on that market whose rules will eventually survive. Worries about some "mentality" being strangled in this process are then not relevant anymore: that would be the lence of an internal market coming about To predict to what extent the different areas of private law will evolve toward some uniform system is not an easy task. To adopt an evolutionary perspective on unification may however be useful. I do not contend that evolutionary theory is the only framework that provides us with explanatory predictions on how a European private law will develop, but it does provide us with some fruitful insights on the way legal rules adapt themselves to changing circumstances, on path dependence and on the probability of a race to the bottom. The mere fact that not all areas of 80l,at70 F.A. HAYEK, Notes on the Evolution of Systems of Rules of Conduct, in STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND ECONOMICS 66(1967); cf. the critical assessment by Viktor Vanberg, Spontaneous Market Order and Social Rules, in Witt(ed ) supra note 33, at 48214 within the European Union) leads to simple rules. This seems to confirm that the “race” is indeed one toward some common legal denominator. Barnard shows however that there is little evidence so far of this phenomenon in Europe.80 She identifies six conditions that have to be met if a race to the bottom is to emerge. Among these conditions are a wide choice of different jurisdictions (like more than 50 legal systems in the United States) and full knowledge of each jurisdiction’s characteristics. These requirements are not met in Europe, where there are only 16 jurisdictions and where it is often difficult to obtain the necessary information about the respective legal systems. From the evolutionary perspective, a race to the bottom is however likely to emerge if these two requirements are met in the future. As to the first requirement, the enlargement of the European Union with Eastern-European states would imply that the differences between the various systems could very well increase. A migration of companies toward systems with lesser standards than the present member-states is then likely to occur. In order to meet the condition of full knowledge of all the European jurisdictions, there is a need for more comparative law study. The only barrier for a true race to the bottom would be constituted by the minimum standards of law, set by the European Union’s directives and regulations. However: the fact that these standards are a barrier to evolution can also be explained by evolutionary theory: the path that has been traced out in the past, has – in Europe – been one of not only giving economic considerations the upper hand. A social policy has always been part of the European venture. In this sense, the investments already made in this policy would be too costly (perhaps not only in a social or cultural sense, but also in a financial sense in that it would entail large costs of changing the present legal position of workers, unemployed, and so on) to deviate from. That not all of the present social guarantees in the European legal systems (namely those that guarantee more than the European minimum standards) will be kept intact, is however inevitable. Hayek is right when he stresses that legal rules may have come into being through historical accident, but that natural selection decides which rules are to survive. The natural selection process then chooses between competing groups of humans, letting survive those groups whose cultural norms and rules are more suited to efficiently coordinate social interactions.81 The European venture of creating a common market then necessarily implies that it is the group of those who are best able to operate on that market whose rules will eventually survive. Worries about some “mentality” being strangled in this process are then not relevant anymore: that would be the irreversible consequence of an internal market coming about. 6. Closing Remarks To predict to what extent the different areas of private law will evolve toward some uniform system is not an easy task. To adopt an evolutionary perspective on unification may however be useful. I do not contend that evolutionary theory is the only framework that provides us with explanatory predictions on how a European private law will develop, but it does provide us with some fruitful insights on the way legal rules adapt themselves to changing circumstances, on path dependence and on the probability of a race to the bottom. The mere fact that not all areas of 80 Id., at 70. 81 F.A. HAYEK, Notes on the Evolution of Systems of Rules of Conduct, in STUDIES IN PHILOSOPHY AND ECONOMICS 66 (1967); cf. the critical assessment by Viktor Vanberg, Spontaneous Market Order and Social Rules, in Witt (ed.), supra note 33, at 482