Luxembourg, 09/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 9 June, the European Parliament validated new European rules to make the free circulation of citizens easier by making the recognition of authentic official identity documents, such as birth and marriage certificates, easier in other member states. The vote engraves in stone an informal agreement reached between the EP and the Council of Ministers.
During the debate in plenary the day before, rapporteur Mady Delvaux (S&D, Luxembourg) said that more than 14 million European citizens live in a different member state from their original country. In order to get married, declare the birth of a child or show that they don't have a legal record, they are required to comply with awkward administrative procedures, but today's vote hade made a first step towards easing these administrative obstacles by scrapping the cumbersome and costly apostil requirements and introducing multilingual forms.
The new rules aim to banish administrative formalities such as apostil certification of identity parenthood or nationality documents. The EP and Council of Ministers have decided to extend the scope of this to cover documents proving the ability to get married or make a declared partnership. Documents stating the absence of legal records will also be accepted in other member states without any further legislative procedures. The rules also cover documents that citizens residing in other member states than their country of origin have to produce if want to vote and/or stand in European or municipal elections.
To avoid the need to translate a number of public documents, the rules introduce multilingual European forms to go alongside the following forms: birth, a living person, death, marriage (including the ability to get married and one's matrimonial status), declared partnership (including the ability to enter a declared partnership and the status of registered partnership), domicile and/or residence, and absence of any criminal records. In a press release, the EP explains that these forms will save time and money and avoid having to get certified translations.
A review clause has been introduced for documents that couldn't be included in the draft legislation to amend Regulation 1024/2012, such as university diplomas and degree certificates and disability certificates. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)