Planning the future of cross-border families: a path through coordination (EUFam's)

Planning the future of cross-border families: a path through coordination (EUFam's)

JUST/2014/JCOO/AG/CIVI/7729

The Project ‘Planning the future of cross-border families: a path through coordination’ (EUFam’s) aims at researching European Union Private international law (Conflict of Laws) of family and successions, and at disseminating project findings, news, and general information on this matter.

The EU system of Private International Law (Conflict of Laws) in family matters has progressively extended its scope from divorce and legal separation (EU regulations No 2201/2003 and No 1259/2010) to the financial aspects of family life (Maintenance Obligations Regulation, 2007 Hague Maintenance Protocol, 2007 Hague Recovery Convention, and Succession Regulation). The system is approaching a further extension once the proposed twin regulations on property regimes in respect of marriage and of registered partnerships are adopted.

The objective of these regulations is to increase legal certainty, predictability and party autonomy with the ultimate goal of removing the obstacles to the free movement of persons. However, in the meantime uncertainties arise from their combined application. Currently, the legislation on these matters is spread out in multiple regulations that regulate in a fragmentary, yet interconnected, manner relationships of a different nature. To this aim, the partners of the project will assess the effectiveness of the in concreto functioning of such regulations with regard to the goals mentioned above, and identify the paths that allow further improvement of such effectiveness.

This Project aims at identifying the difficulties met by courts and practitioners in applying the provisions laid down in the regulations, and assessing the solutions adopted by courts and practitioners; comparing the solutions adopted in the different Member States involved in the Project; facilitating the dialogue between legal operators and the development of a common expertise;identifying possible uniform best practices; suggesting models of concrete tools available to courts and practitioners, as well as to the end-users themselves; formulating policy guidelines for future regulations and/or amendments to the current regulations, and submitting them to the EU legislator with a view to taking further steps in the direction of removing the current obstacles to the free movement of persons in the European space of freedom, security and justice.

The EUFam’s Project is co-funded by the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers of the European Commission, within the programme “Projects to support judicial cooperation in civil or criminal matters” (Justice Programme).

Project Website: www.eufams.unimi.it

Project Facebook account: www.facebook.com/eufams

The Partners of the Project are: the University of Milan, the University of Heidelberg, the University of Osijek, the University of Valencia, the University of Verona, the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law, the Italian Family Lawyers Association, the Spanish Family Lawyers Association, the Italian Judicial Academy and the Croatian Judiciary Academy.

The Member States addressed in the Project are Germany, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Greece and France.

The Projects priority is to contribute to the correct and consistent application of Regulation No 2201/2003, Regulation No 1259/2010, Regulation No 4/2009, the 2007 Hague Protocol, the 2007 Hague Recovery Convention and Regulation No 650/2012; it aims at identifying the difficulties met by courts and practitioners in applying the provisions laid down in the regulations, and assessing the solutions adopted by courts and practitioners.

A national case-law database, with the case law of the addressed Member States, is freely available at the Project Website.

The e-mail contact for further information is: eufams(at)unimi.it