Central and Eastern European Countries after and before the Accession 2 [antikvár]

Foreword In spring this year the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence of the Faculty of Law of ELTE University published the first volume of the conference book Central and Eastern European Countries after and before the Accession. That volume contained research papers prepared by the academic staff of our Centre within the framework of a Jean Monnet Programme of the European Commission. The aim of the papers was to stimulate legal debate on the application and implementation of EU law in Central and Eastern European countries in somé selected areas of law, like priváté international law, free movement of persons, consumer protection and the application or EU law by national courts. As a follow-up of the publication of the research work, the papers were presented at a conference held in Budapest the 28-29 April 2011 still under the running Jean Monnet Programme. Representatives of law faculties of the region were invited to comment the papers and to contribute to the debate by expressing their own perception and views concerning the respective fields of law. This volume aims to supplement the first one by containing the contributions presented by the guest speakers at the April conference. It is important to note that not only current but alsó future and candidate Member States' legal systems influenced by European law are represented. Among the contributors of this volume you can find academics and researchers from different law faculties and research institutions from Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia. Regionalism is one of the guiding principles the European Union is based on. It does not only mean that lower regulatory entities should maintain their power to legislate unless it is proved that higher level intervention should be more efficient and justified, but it should alsó mean that legal rules adopted at European level should be inserted into national legal systems in a way which allows to maintain and respect national and where applicable, régiónál specificities. The role legal scholars might play in this respect is that they exchange experience and information concerning their own legal system and as a result of this exchange of information they try to identify common interests, challenges and in certain cases possible solutions inspired by each others' legal models. I strongly believe that this second step towards an informál but active academic cooperation at Central and Eastern European level is just the beginning of a long road which must be paved in the coming years. Budapest, August 2011. Prof. Miklós Király Dean Head of Department Department of Priváté International Law and European Economic Law Faculty of Law, ELTE University