Remarks Regarding the Influence of European Legislation upon Codification of Civil Law

This paper emphasises that Europeanisation of law contributes greatly to the phenomenon of decodification. The impact of European legislation on the position of the civil code as the main source of private law is clearly visible in the case of directly effective regulations. Also, implementation of directives can (and often does) lead to the creation of legislation regulating civil law matters, yet separate from the civil code. The Polish experience with implementation of directives concerning consumers protection makes for a good example. Regulation of timeshare contracts completely outside the civil code is – according to the Polish doctrine – a result of difficulties with integrating this particular provision into the codification of private law. If such difficulties are inevitable, so is also progressing decodification of civil law due to its advancing harmonization on the European level.