That's not entirely accurate when talking about the French and German forms of private law, which are the most popular non-common-law private law systems in the European Union (there are others, such as the Swedish system).

In both systems, periodic codification of the body of private law is made by the judiciary, executive and legislative branches working together at regular intervals with a goal of producing a nearly complete set of relevant rules for dealing with lawsuits between private persons.

The contrast is most keenly seen in landlord-tenant law, which in France is fully codified in a single document, while there are many Acts of Parliament and case law that apply in England and Wales.

In the French and German systems, matters that cannot be fully decided by reference to the relevant codified law are dealt with by the court of first instance writing down a decision with logic similar to that done in county courts in the UK. The parties generally have an automatic right of appeal from the court of first instance to a court that behaves very similarly to either the High Court in England or the Court of Appeal for England and Wales when it hears evidence sua sponte. The rulings of these appellate courts will almost always form the basis for a revision of the relevant code, and in the interim the appellate courts will generally reverse any ruling by a court of first instance that conflicts.

Codification also happens in public law, both administrative law and criminal law. Many common-law countries other than England and Wales -- most notably Canada and the United States (federally, and in several of the states) have a criminal code that is amended and revised from time to time. The German system of codification in criminal law also incorporates points of what in the U.S. would be doctrinal (i.e., wholly maintained by the judiciary) directly into the code, so that most criminal cases do not have to make reference to any other document even where there are controversies over the behaviour of the police or other authorities.

Precedent -- not precedence -- therefore differs mainly in the use of extra-statutory material in courts of first instance.

Note that in this particular case, European Administrative and Procedural Law (and particularly with respect to member-states' compliance with the Treaty of the European Union) is the relevant system, and while it strives to codify after the fact, typically a Directorate-General of the European Commission holds quasi-judicial hearings and writes down a detailed analysis and order in a process that in English Law would be considered secondary or delegated legislation, or something very very roughly similar to an Executive Order of a form explicitly allowed by an Act of Congress (one might compare decisions of e.g. the FCC). These orders are reviewable by the Commission as a whole, and in principle references may be made to the Council on an ad hoc basis. Parties subjected to adverse orders have a right to go to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on various grounds, and there is an appeals process within the CJEU.

This system stems from (among others) Articles 41 and 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 298 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

With respect to precedent under this system, in general if an administrative decision by the Commission is not appealed or is not overturned on appeal, it remains part of secondary law until and unless the CJEU or the legislature (both parts, the European Parliament and the European Council) changes it. That means that Commission decisions that elucidate a general principle is binding on future Commission decisions. I can't imagine what to call that other than binding precedent.