cannot do without such a final decision by a court at the European level. If we do nothing at the national level. this means that in all cases in which contract law is involved four instances are needed to reach the final solution This is fuel to the fire of court congestion Among the few authors giving attention to this problem are Messrs Lando and Von Bar in their combined reaction to the communication of the European Commission. They rightly state that the existing model whereby the national courts refer questions to the eCJ is already under strain and would doubtless not be workable any more after unifying a substantial part of private law. They appear to accept fundamentally a system resulting four instances. As a remedy they mention the possibility of leap frogging procedures, enabling cases to jump from lower national courts to the national Supreme Court or to a European court This is not the moment to go deeper into this issue. I only remark that it seems worthwhile to investigate the possibility of setting up a real European judiciary for European private law cases. European courts of first instance and appeal would enable bringing together judges from different countries, forcing them to cooperate. I think that the right instrument for unifying case law should be sought in that direction. Jurisdiction problems may be avoided by giving the plaintiff in mixed cases a choice between the local national and the local European court. This is in line and can be combined with a large possibility of leap frogging, in all directions, including from a lower national court to a European appellate instance or from a European court of first instance to a national supreme court, depend ing on the issues that need to be decided. It may give rise to a lot of forum shopping, but exactly this national judge, it might be a promotion to be appointed as a member of a European cour e may lead to competition between the two jurisd ictions, furthering their effectiveness. For And a judge in a European court might be promoted to a higher national court Before I become too technical, I should end this paper. My last observation is that a well-functioning European contract law is only possible if we succeed in finding workable solutions for those technical aspects of procedural law. What is at stake here is access to justice. Without it, there is no point in unifying European lawcannot do without such a final decision by a court at the European level. If we do nothing at the national level, this means that, in all cases in which contract law is involved, four instances are needed to reach the final solution. This is fuel to the fire of court congestion. Among the few authors giving attention to this problem are Messrs Lando and Von Bar in their combined reaction to the communication of the European Commission. They rightly state that the existing model whereby the national courts refer questions to the ECJ is already under strain and would doubtless not be workable any more after unifying a substantial part of private law. They appear to accept fundamentally a system resulting in four instances. As a remedy they mention the possibility of ‘leap frogging’ procedures, enabling cases to jump from lower national courts to the national Supreme Court or to a European court. This is not the moment to go deeper into this issue. I only remark that it seems worthwhile to investigate the possibility of setting up a real European judiciary for European private law cases. European courts of first instance and appeal would enable bringing together judges from different countries, forcing them to cooperate. I think that the right instrument for unifying case law should be sought in that direction. Jurisdiction problems may be avoided by giving the plaintiff in mixed cases a choice between the local national and the local European court. This is in line and can be combined with a large possibility of leap frogging, in all directions, including from a lower national court to a European appellate instance or from a European court of first instance to a national supreme court, depending on the issues that need to be decided. It may give rise to a lot of forum shopping, but exactly this may lead to competition between the two jurisdictions, furthering their effectiveness. For a national judge, it might be a promotion to be appointed as a member of a European court. And a judge in a European court might be promoted to a higher national court. Before I become too technical, I should end this paper. My last observation is that a well-functioning European contract law is only possible if we succeed in finding workable solutions for those technical aspects of procedural law. What is at stake here is access to justice. Without it, there is no point in unifying European law