Die Vorfrage im europäischen Kollisionsrecht

The incidental question is considered to be one of the most central institutions of private international law. However, the determination of the law applicable to the incidental question is still controversial. Despite the advancing harmonization of the EU-PIL, a Europe-wide harmonized conflict-of-laws rule is still missing. This inevitably leads to subjective case-by-case decisions regarding the law applicable to the European incidental question. On the basis of a uniform definition of an incidental question, the author presents a solution to the European incidental question problem and creates argumentative references to national and international PIL. The author then evaluates various possibilities for the location of a conflict-of-laws rule specific to European incidental questions.