The EU internal market and the role of insolvency

Bob Wessels and Defne Taşman

Chapter 2 in The European Insolvency Regulation, 2026, pp 8-13 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: The EU joins 27 Member States in a single internal market, with the free movement of goods, services, capital, and persons. While insolvency law is central to this single market, economic markets largely remain national, testing the cohesion of the EU economy. The EU has responded with the path of coordination through a framework to make the national regimes work together based on the mutual trust of the Member States’ legal regimes. This trust finds its practical form in the European Insolvency Regulation (EIR), adopted in 2000 and recast in 2015, setting out how cross-border insolvency cases are to be handled within the EU. This creates a layered system: (1) a national layer, where each Member State retains its substantive insolvency regime; and (2) a coordination layer for cross-border cases. The EIR determines which courts have jurisdiction, which law governs matters influenced by insolvency (such as security interests and contracts), and how decisions are recognised. It sets criteria for resolving conflicts of law, facilitates direct cooperation, and establishes mechanisms for coordination between proceedings, both for insolvency practitioners and courts.

Keywords: European Insolvency Regulation; Internal Market; Four Freedoms; Conflict of Laws; Insolvency Law Harmonisation; Capital Markets Union; Mutual Trust (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035396436
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035396443.00011 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:25589_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().