Plans have been announced to make divorce laws more standard across the EU in order to stop disputes over which country’s courts should handle divorce proceedings.
The proposals, announced on Wednesday, will see domestic courts issued with standards to determine which national law should apply in cases involving couples with links to more than one EU member state.
Presently, a regulation known as Brussels II bis governs divorces where at least one of the partners has links with more than one member state.
Under this regulation, the court of the Member State in which divorce proceedings are first validly instituted will be the court deemed to be seized of the divorce. Proceedings issued in any other court after that will not be deemed valid.
Earlier efforts to to introduce EU-wide rules on divorce were dropped in 2008 because of intense opposition and critics have denounced the new plans as “yet further meddling” in national sovereignty.
Almost one in five of the 875,000 divorces in Europe now involves couples who come from different countries, the Daily Telegraph reports.
This has led to a growing number of disputes over where divorce hearings should be held – with couples racing to get their petition lodged in the country they believe the law will be most favourable.
Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship, has made unifying rules on divorce one of her priorities.
She wants the criteria, initially introduced in ten member states including France, Italy and Spain, before being rolled out to all 27 EU members, including Britain.
“Conflicting applicable law rules lead to legal complications and heavy costs, making amicable and planned divorces harder,” she said.
A spokesman for the EU said the idea was to reduce the stress of divorce and to get closer co-operation between the EU’s legal systems.
“We believe the rules on divorce will work despite differences in countries’ legal codes,” he said.
But the plans have been condemned by some with critics claiming it is “harmonising EU law through the back door”.
