MEPs want to oblige EU countries to recognise adoption certificates that are issued in another member state automatically, and on Thursday 2 February they called for urgent action from the European Commission on this. In a resolution adopted by 533 votes in favour, 41 against and 72 abstentions, they propose the creation a European adoption certificate with the aim of accelerating the automatic recognition procedure.
The Commission is not obliged to follow these recommendations, the Parliament says in its press release, but it will have to justify any potential rejection of them.
In order to protect adopted children, the Commission is asked to present rules on automatic recognition, throughout the EU, of national adoptions – in other words, when the adoptive parents and the adopted child live in the same country. Although the Hague Convention requires the automatic recognition of adoptions in all signatory countries, including the EU member states, this convention only involves adoptions for which the parents and adopted child live in two different countries, the Parliament states.
The European adoption certificate would speed up the automatic recognition procedure of "national" adoption certificates on a European level.
Families whose child has been adopted in the same country as them, are still faced with administrative and judicial obstacles when they move from one EU member state to another.
For example, parents can come up against difficulties when registering their adopted child for school, or when obtaining medical treatment for the child, if they do not take the necessary additional legal measures to prove that they really do have custody of the child, the European Parliament states. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)