Michel GERMAIN - Professor (université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas)
Jean-Jacques ANSAULT - Professor (université de Rouen)
Philippe ROUSSEL-GALLE - Professor (université Paris 5 Paris Descartes)
Nicolas BINCTIN - Professor (université de Poitiers)
Bankruptcy of legal entities has always been an element of global economy. The issue of insolvency has also been present since the beginning of intracommunity trade. The European Union has been trying to arrange the social and economic life of the Member States in a uniform manner, in particular by developing and implementing legislation supporting them operations in the reality. The social and economic reality of the Member States are subject to material changes, in particular with respect to bankruptcy. The success of the European Union consists in its ability to adapt to the changing environment by general regulations applicable to legal entities in the Member States, leaving more complex and detailed regulations to domestic regulations. As a result, varied legal systems were unified by imposing general Community regulations. The increasing risk of bankruptcy or reorganisation of enterprises functioning in more than one EU country (groups of companies) forced the legislator to develop bankruptcy law at the European level. This paper analyses the Council Regulation (EC) No. 1346/2000 of 29 May 2000 on insolvency proceedings which is the first and only EU legal act regulating the issue of bankruptcy in a general manner. Why should the bankruptcy laws in Poland and in France be analysed in parallel? Since France is one of the most important founder countries of the European Union and Poland is the largest country (in terms of its size and number of inhabitants) among the new members of the European Union that joined in 2004.