La vendita tra regole europee e nazionali: i modelli dei diritti croato e sloveno

In a relatively recent history, the EU has started to experience a significant enlargement toward eastern borders of the Old Continent. Such an enormous extension of Community borders over a short period of time created a strong impact: all the Member States, both old and new ones, as well as the candidate states, developed the need to understand legal system of the others. The present study examines two young independent states that have arisen from dissolution of the Yugoslav state, namely, Croatia and Slovenia. They were chosen exactly because they are understudied legal orders which, on the other hand, are very well acquainted with Western legal orders, especially those derived from German model. The study commences with a necessary reconstruction of the complex historical context in which private law of these people had evolved. In doing so, the author discovered a significant similarity of these legal models not so much with different Western models, but rather with the actual European private law. In an attempt to identify the origin of such a European legal matrix, that precedes most of the Community regulations, the study continues with the analysis of choices made by legislators of these states in relation to certain aspects of the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees at the moment of reception of the 1999/44/EC Directive. Certainly, the study of sale of consumer goods cannot leave out the study of general norms on sale. The method used in this study is not limited to a pure comparison of solutions adopted. Rather, on the basis of choices made in these two new European countries in occasion of reception of the mentioned directive, the author attempted to discover whether it is possible to derive from the law on sale of these countries suggestions and proposals, that might be of use to Member States that have demonstrated difficulties in implementing Community law related to sale of consumer good, since rules deriving from European level have brought disharmony in the internal law on obligations. It has been shown that both Croatian and Slovenian legislators have been successful in implementing the Directive achieving a quality result. In fact, this success is primarily a result of existence and validity of general legal norms included in both countries in respective codes on obligations that owe their modernity to strong influence of the international conventions, especially to the Vienna Convention on International Sale of Goods. Perhaps the most important result of this study is the discovery that in the centre of Europe there has already existed a law on sale unknown to many, but surprisingly modern.