European contract law: coming out

The European Commission has published a Green Paper on the "policy options for progress towards a European Contract Law for consumers and businesses". The title gives the game away. The issue is less whether there should be a European contract law, and more how the Commission can get there and what it should look like. After many years of financing the creation of a European contract code, but at the same time being evasive as to the purpose that code would serve, the European Commission has, therefore, finally come clean as to its aspirations. Does this mean, in the words ( almost) of Lord Grey, that national laws are going out all over Europe and that we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime? Or does it just mean that there will be one extra system of law that might be chosen to govern a contract? How should business react to the prospect of any form of European contract law?