EU-style divorce
March 25, 2010
Some 300,000 marriages between people from different European Union countries take place every year - the romantic side of the increasing borderlessness of the 27-nation bloc. But 140,000 mixed-nationality EU couples file for divorce every year, and many are faced with a legal maze created by divorce laws that vary from country to country across the EU.
But ten EU countries - Austria, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia and Spain - want to take advantage of a never-before-used 1997 treaty provision to simplify that process. It allows for a subgroup of EU countries to develop a system of "enhanced cooperation." The ten want to form their own pact harmonizing their divorce laws.
The countries need approval from EU justice ministers to draw up such a deal, but the idea would be to obligate couples to agree on a jurisdiction for their divorce proceedings. If they cannot agree, the divorce laws of the country where they last lived together would apply.
A boon or a burden?
Supporters of the idea say it would streamline mixed-nationality divorces, possibly reduce legal fees, and discourage "divorce shopping," in which one spouse seeks out the jurisdiction that favors him or her.
"International couples can encounter arbitrary legal problems that turn the tragedy of divorce into a financial and emotional disaster… because national legal systems have so far failed to provide clear answers," said EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding.
But critics of the proposal say it would create a "Europe within Europe." And value-laden family policy is an area the EU usually sidesteps. Divorce laws vary dramatically across the bloc. Malta does not even permit divorce, only legal separation.
But Reding downplayed concerns of a two-speed Europe, saying that "several" other countries were also interested in the enhanced cooperation.
hf/AFP/AP
Editor: Stephanie Siek