This book explores the significance of Europeanization for the relationship between private law and the state, by focusing on the emergence of European Union contract law. Lucinda Miller begins by critically examining each of the central concepts, in particular those of ‘Europeanization’ and ‘private law’, and the varying assumptions – theoretical, political, and ideological – which underpin them. She moves on to look at the emergence and development of EU contract law over time by the European Court of Justice and through legislation, noting how the imperatives of market integration and the Treaty competences on harmonization affect and shape the nature, the aims, and justification offered for EU contract law. Using a study of the domestic reception of the EU Sales Directive, the author focuses on the interplay between EU and national contract law to examine some of the unintended adverse consequences of the EU’s – and particularly the Commission’s – efforts at harmonization of law in this field. Criticizing the push towards uniformity and harmonization upwards, she argues that a better future for European contract law lies in finding and designing mechanisms to facilitate productive rather than destructive interaction between the legal orders. In a chapter on the Common Frame of Reference and the Review of the Consumer Acquis, she examines the Commission’s move towards a broader strategy to develop a coherent European contract law in the place of a sector specific maximum-harmonization approach, and contemplates the advantages of a non-legislative approach which would not be shaped by competence constraints. Criticizing the Commission’s unwillingness to address the political values that European contract law should reflect, the author situates the topic of European private law within the context of the literature on multi-level governance. She argues that EU contract law should not reflect a hierarchical notion of governance and should move away from methodological nationalism which takes the nation state as the reference point.