:  The pre‐accession programmes of the European Union and the candidate countries have focused heavily on law reform. Only relatively recently, it was recognised that successful administrative and court reform would be just as necessary in order to achieve the desired goals, namely that the candidates would eventually be able to take on their obligations as new members of the Union. Unfortunately, it has now become evident that it is easier to write new laws than to get them properly applied in every day practice. This article describes a number of cases to illustrate the problem. It shows that administrators and judges in Central and Eastern Europe have significant difficulties with Western working methods, specifically the application of international norms in the national legal order, due process and procedural safeguards, treatment of precedents, resolution of ambiguities and lacunae in the law, etc., which may in turn result in unjust and sometimes absurd application of laws. These difficulties cannot be resolved merely by organising ever more training courses and other theoretical programmes. The author claims that the majority of efforts promoting administrative and court reform applied so far have rendered only meager results. Therefore, additional and more creative measures have to be designed and implemented and have to be continued for years beyond accession of most of these countries to the EU in 2004. Otherwise, rule of law deserving its name will not materialise in the new Member States. The author concludes by offering some ideas based on many years of experience in the region.

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I wish to thank my former assistant, Ms Sonja Wollkopf, MAES, now at Price Waterhouse, Zurich, for her invaluable help in particular with the sections on the free movement of persons and the political system of Switzerland. Needless to say, responsibility for any errors and shortcomings remains mine alone.I Numerically, Switzerland, with some 400,000 men under arms, has one of the largest armies in Europe today. Yet this army is a militia. Each man has his uniform, gun and other equipment permanently at home and only attends refresher courses for some two or three weeks per year.

ResumenEl documento presenta el DCFR, el cual es el proyecto sobre el futuro Código de las obligaciones de la Unión Europea y que trabaja o funciona un poco como la UCC en Estados Unidos, es decir, como un modelo de código Comercial.