The last decade has seen the increasing integration of European financial markets due to a number of factors including the creation of a common regulatory framework, the liberalisation of
international capital movements, financial deregulation, advances in technology, and the introduction of the euro. However, the process of integration has proceeded largely in the absence of
any comprehensive legal regulation, and has rather been constructed on the basis of sectorial provisions dictated by the needs of cross-border transactions. This has meant that many legal
barriers still remain as obstacles to complete integration.
This book considers the discipline of monetary obligations within the wider context of financial markets. It provides a comparative and transnational examination of the legal rules which form
the basis of transactions on financial markets. Analysing the integration o the markets from a legal point of view provides an opportunity to highlight the role of globalisation as the key
element favouring the circulation of rules, models, and especially the development of new regulatory sources.
The Integration of European Financial Markets examines market transactions and the institutes at the root of these transactions, including the type of legislative sources in force and the
subjects acting as legislators. The first part of the book concentrates on the micro-discipline of money, debts, payments, and financial instruments. The second part goes on to analyse the
macro-context of integration of the markets, looking at the persistence of legal barriers and options for their removal, as well as the development of new legal sources as a consequence of the
transfer of monetary and political sovereignty. The final section of the book draws on the results of the previous parts and assesses the consequences of changes on the macro-level (regulation)
and the micro-level (monetary obligations) with a particular focus on the emergence and growing importance of sort law.
