For decades, the worlds of European law and international commercial arbitration have coexisted as distant planets whose orbits hardly ever intersected. However, the dynamics of EC law and arbitration have been similar: both have been steadily expanding and gaining in scope, influence and ambition. The relationship between the two has in recent years become complex and intricate as the Eco Swiss judgement of the European Court of Justice demonstrated. The author focuses on finding and analysing the origin and causes of the tension in the relationship between EC law and arbitration. Different methodological approaches to the problem of the relationship between EC law and arbitration inspired by European law or arbitration practice are analysed. Both the grounds of application of EC law in arbitration proceedings and various mechanisms at the national and Community level safeguarding its application are extensively considered. On this basis, the author reflects on how the contradiction between, on the one hand, requirements of effective and uniform application of law stemming from EC law and, on the other hand, national principles of judicial non-interference in arbitration and the finality of the arbitral awards, which exclude judicial review of the awards on the grounds of legal and factual errors, should be resolved.The ultimate aim of this book is to open up the problem area to an audience with diverse specialist knowledge: arbitration practitioners, lawyers, judges, and anyone with an interest in the influence of EC law on arbitration and private law in general.