the national authorities to ensure an effective application and enforcement of Community law through domestic legal instruments. This is mainly, though not only a matter of procedural law 6 A recent example of this is related to the dutch scandal concerning by the abuse of the subsidies given by the European Social Fund. Such subsid ies are bound to strict rules, which were violated grossly by the Dutch authorities. Accord ing to European law, the Netherlands are obliged to force the institutions which received these subsidies to return them But the only instrument available is national Dutch law on undue payment or unjust enrichment. This gives problems especially in cases where the subsidy was transferred to a third party, who in fact spent the money. In such cases, the subsidy should be claimed from the third party, whose advantage distorted the market. In the laws of many countries includ ing the Netherlands, enrichment cases involving third parties are notoriously difficult and uncertain. This means that European law forces us to develop rules to meet this difficulty The conclusion must be that there is already a considerable amount of European private law and that we should expect that it will increase. There is, however, consensus about the fact that this European law up to now is badly coordinated and shows many inconsistencies. The expanding ed ifice of European law, intertwined with national law as it is is extremely unsafe indeed. Nevertheless, we can be sure that the flow of European regulations will continue, irrespective of the trustworthiness of the build ing. For that reason, the issue of coord ination of this increasing flow of rules cannot well be avoided Coord ination is not really possible if we concentrate only on option 3, limited to existing European law(acquis communautaire). You cannot solve a puzzle if new pieces are added all the time. The only solution is to combine options 2, 3 and 4. The river should have a bed, in which it can run on smoothly and without inconsistencies. The question of unifying European private law is basically a question of accelerating and improving a process that is in itself inevitable. If you cannot stop a process, you better join it, which enables you to influence it The only choice is: Are we going to take a reluctant or an eager attitude? 2. The fallacy of fearing emotional obstacles Having explained my basic position, I now come to the obstacles opposing it. Many of them are of an emotional or irrational nature. I will not go deep into them, because I think they should not stop us, exactly because they seem not rational. I mention some of these arguments: a) National legal cultures are irreconcilable, especially where civil law and common law are involved; b) The richness of many law systems, each with its own features A good overview of the problems of this gateway, focused on procedural law is given by T. Heukels and. Tib, Towards Homogeneity in the Field of Legal Remedies: Convergence and Divergence, in P Beaumont, C. Lyons and N. Walker(eds ) Convergence and Divergence in European Public Law, Oxford 2002, p. 111 ff. For a recent case concerning tort law, see ECJ 17 September 2002, Munoz v Frumar, C-253-00 profess his allegation is contradicted clearly by the phenomenon of legal transplants In my experience, legal nals understand each other very well, even if they come from quite different legal systems(UK, US Russia, China). Probably they understand each other much better than they are understood by the lay people of their own countrythe national authorities to ensure an effective application and enforcement of Community law through domestic legal instruments. This is mainly, though not only a matter of procedural law.6 A recent example of this is related to the Dutch scandal concerning by the abuse of the subsidies given by the European Social Fund. Such subsidies are bound to strict rules, which were violated grossly by the Dutch authorities. According to European law, the Netherlands are obliged to force the institutions which received these subsidies to return them. But the only instrument available is national Dutch law on undue payment or unjust enrichment. This gives problems especially in cases where the subsidy was transferred to a third party, who in fact spent the money. In such cases, the subsidy should be claimed from the third party, whose advantage distorted the market. In the laws of many countries, including the Netherlands, enrichment cases involving third parties are notoriously difficult and uncertain. This means that European law forces us to develop rules to meet this difficulty. The conclusion must be that there is already a considerable amount of European private law and that we should expect that it will increase. There is, however, consensus about the fact that this European law up to now is badly coordinated and shows many inconsistencies. The expanding edifice of European law, intertwined with national law as it is, is extremely unsafe indeed. Nevertheless, we can be sure that the flow of European regulations will continue, irrespective of the trustworthiness of the building. For that reason, the issue of coordination of this increasing flow of rules cannot well be avoided. Coordination is not really possible if we concentrate only on option 3, limited to existing European law (acquis communautaire). You cannot solve a puzzle if new pieces are added all the time. The only solution is to combine options 2, 3 and 4. The river should have a bed, in which it can run on smoothly and without inconsistencies. The question of unifying European private law is basically a question of accelerating and improving a process that is in itself inevitable. If you cannot stop a process, you better join it, which enables you to influence it. The only choice is: Are we going to take a reluctant or an eager attitude? 2. The fallacy of fearing emotional obstacles Having explained my basic position, I now come to the obstacles opposing it. Many of them are of an emotional or irrational nature. I will not go deep into them, because I think they should not stop us, exactly because they seem not rational. I mention some of these arguments: a) National legal cultures are irreconcilable, especially where civil law and common law are involved;7 b) The richness of many law systems, each with its own features, 6 A good overview of the problems of this gateway, focused on procedural law is given by T. Heukels and J. Tib, ‘Towards Homogeneity in the Field of Legal Remedies: Convergence and Divergence’, in P. Beaumont, C. Lyons and N. Walker (eds.), Convergence and Divergence in European Public Law, Oxford 2002, p. 111 ff. For a recent case concerning tort law, see ECJ 17 September 2002, Muñoz v Frumar, C-253-00. 7 This allegation is contradicted clearly by the phenomenon of legal transplants. In my experience, legal professionals understand each other very well, even if they come from quite different legal systems (UK, US, Russia, China). Probably they understand each other much better than they are understood by the lay people of their own country