By a vote of 529 to 49 with 52 abstentions, MEPs adopted an own-initiative report by rapporteur Adrián Vázquez Lázara (Renew Europe, Spain) calling for better protection of children in civil, administrative and family law proceedings.
In this text, the Parliament makes recommendations to further protect children in legal proceedings and to avoid stress for them, and to facilitate mediation in proceedings. It calls on the European Commission to present a proposal for a regulation on cross-border mediation that sets common standards.
The Brussels IIa regulation, which will enter into force in August, should already strengthen children’s rights in divorce proceedings, including cross-border ones, European Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius recalled during the plenary debate on 4 April.
The MEPs are also calling on Member States to “effectively” enforce decisions on the recognition of parenthood taken by another Member State. Mr Sinkevičius said that the European Commission would present a “legislative initiative” on this subject, without specifying a timetable. “This will further protect the right of children to maintain a relationship with both parents”, he added. This is particularly true for same-sex couples.
In February, the Justice Ministers discussed the issue with the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, in Lille. He had indicated that he wanted to present a text before the end of the year, but could not specify whether it would be a legislative text or not (see EUROPE 12884/2).
“The adoption of this report is the first of a series of steps to ensure that no more European families, no more families with two fathers or two mothers, have to suffer when moving from one Member State to another”, said the rapporteur.
See the own-initiative report: https://aeur.eu/f/144 (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)