1. Introduction

The European market is naturally highly attractive, as it has a potential 500 million consumers who live in developed and industrialized economies, with major purchasing power compared to the markets of developing countries, where purchasing power is low.  However, the inevitable corollary of such a unified market, consisting of well-established and efficient economic, industrial and trade structures, is incontestably the existence of a well-defined economic legal framework to satisfy the requirements of a modern economy.  This legal framework is a hybrid, European law being superimposed on the various national laws.  This situation represents a hurdle to a considerable number of companies that would like to do business in Europe, but have the impression that the European market is as restrictive as the former markets of the Eastern countries, or at least much more restrictive than the American market they are maybe used to doing business with.

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