The recent questions around the Euro have revealed the fragility of a monetary construction which is not based on common legal foundations: it is important to consolidate the Eurozone, to give it meaning and a future, based on a unified system of business law, the bond between companies and a vector of convergence.

In the framework of the enhanced cooperation which has been enabled by the European Treaties, the implementation of a European business code, on the political momentum of the major countries of the Eurozone, should be placed at the heart of the European project: Germany, France, Italy in close partnership with the Commission. This would be a fundamental progress.

This project would provide a new dynamic and would give meaning and future to the Euro. It would mobilise an extremely wide spectrum of civil societies components and their vital forces in favour of the European project, which are currently disoriented and desiring a concrete political impetus: legal and accounting professionals, trade unions, companies, SMEs which are directly concerned and are the essential sources for the creation of wealth and employment, employers' organisations, universities, the young people, who are the first ones concerned by the future of Europe. It would place corporate, commercial, labour relations law at the heart of the revitalisation of the European project and would enable the mobilisation of all the economic and social stakeholders.

Today, the absence of a true unity of law rules which govern companies within the Eurozone (especially in areas of bankruptcy, debt recovery, securities and real estate, as well as corporate law, general commercial law, cooperatives and associations law, accounting law and perhaps some sections of social law and tax law, etc.) is a considerable handicap for the proper functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union. How can we imagine that the banking union, the unique oversight mechanism, the single resolution mechanism, the union of capital markets are able to operate smoothly and relevantly without a common base of business law?

It is clearly appropriate to identify the existing legislation: over the past 30 years, the European Commission has indeed produced a considerable number of regulations, directives, and recommendations in the area of business law. The work of enumerating and inventorying the existing legislation and the acquis communautaire is an essential prerequisite. It is currently being conducted under the supervision of French scholars who are specialised in business law.

This work of enumerating and inventorying the acquis communautaire will be delivered on 15 January. It will enable the identification of areas for improvement and the scope of possibilities to launch the momentum for implementing a European Business Code. This Code would be a consolidation of the optimisation and development of the acquis communautaire in order to unify the existing legislation. It would constitute a legal foundation, a fundamental and essential support of the European single currency and the Economic and Monetary Union.

As a legislative text summarising the existing legislation and unifying it, ideally of a mandatory capacity, it would be a fundamental bond between the economies which collectively use the Euro.

This project, which no one either challenges the relevance or underestimates the difficulty, is today led by a group of former civil servants, a large number of French lawyers and legal practitioners, and a growing number of business leaders wishing to be involved along with the French government to contribute to the consolidation of the Euro and to the impetus of a new dynamic which is promising and meaningful for the currency community and the European project.

It will have to be embodied by European, political, economic and social key leading figures and obviously involve very closely the co-legislators of the European Union, which are the European Commission and the European Parliament. The political impetus will have to be based on the major countries which were at the very origin of the European project, particularly France, Germany and Italy.

It would be of great symbolic significance that the “European Business Code” project could be a hopeful and promising concrete sign during the thirtieth-anniversary celebrations of the Single Act at the end of February 2016.