Principle: freedom of contract and of negotiation … but within (not very clearly) defined limits.
The tenets of our contract law and, by extension, our economic order are freedom of contract (art. 5.14 of the Civil Code) and freedom of negotiation (art. 5.15 of the Civil Code). From this follows that anyone is free to contract, to establish the conditions of consent and to initiate, conduct or break off negotiations, without having to justify one or the other. The underlying idea is that freedom leads to joy (or at least welfare maximization).
This article is available in Dutch and French.