Brussels, 03/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - Meeting in Brussels on Thursday 3 December, the Justice ministers of the EU adopted the compromise reached on 21 October on a regulation regarding the circulation of certain public documents in the EU, such as marriage certificates, civil partnerships or other civil status certificates, such as extracts from the criminal record.
The new rules adopted will make the procedures easier, for instance by excluding the requirement for documents to be stamped in order to authenticate them. A further simplification consists of making optional standard multi-lingual forms available in all official languages of the EU.
Citizens will be able to ask for these forms to accompany their national public documents for a number of areas such as birth, death, marriage, civil partnerships and extracts from the criminal record. Consequently, citizens will no longer be obliged always to have their national documents translated.
The Council will formally adopt the text shortly, before it goes back to the EP for second reading, the Council explains. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)