Originally from Collective Litigation in Europe: Law and Practice – Preview Page

This chapter records the history of the development of European Union policy and legislation on “collective redress,” meaning a procedural mechanism by which a group of individual claims that have sufficient similarities are processed together in a single procedure.1 From different approaches and models in the EU Member States, through a variety of proposals, discussions, non-binding recommendations, and academic writings, the EU has now arrived at a set of binding rules which require that all states have a collective redress procedure.  
Introducing collective litigation procedure in Europe has been a challenging process because it involved rethinking some fundamental ideas about the roles of civil justice and civil litigation. Further, it entailed reconciling collective proceedings with European fundamental rights of fair trial and access to justice, rights guaranteed by constitutions of the majority of European states, as well as some international law sources which bind them (the ECHR, CFREU). An additional hurdle related to European federalism. The EU’s lawmaking powers are constrained by the principle of conferral, and further by the requirements of subsidiarity and proportionality. In other words, the EU can only legislate when it has the power to do so conferred by its founding Treaties and when the same result could not be achieved by the Member States. Its laws need to be proportionate to the aims they are to achieve. Drafting a proposal that would overcome these limitations and that would be acceptable to all Member States, was not an easy task.