The European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) met on Tuesday 19 September to examine the amendments to the draft report by Maria-Manuel Leitão-Marques (S&D, Portuguese) on the Commission’s proposal for a Regulation on the European parentage certificate (see EUROPE 13215/7).
Addressing a number of key points raised in her colleagues’ contributions, notably on the public policy exception, Mrs Leitão-Marques said: “I would like to thank the Renew Europe Group for the amendments that suggest retaining this exemption, but suspending its effect in the event of an appeal by parents until all national and European appeals have been exhausted”.
With regard to adoption, she emphasised: “This proposal does not concern adoption. (...) The aim is to ensure that, if a parent-child relationship has been established in one Member State, it must be recognised in the others”.
The shadow rapporteur, Pierre Karleskind (Renew Europe, French), expressed concern about the large number of amendments proposed by some “right-wing and far-right” MEPs, which he described as attempts to “gut the text of its substance”. He also stressed that this text had a direct impact on the rights of millions of children in Europe, and urged that nothing should be given up regarding their defence.
On the sensitive issue of the public policy exception, Mr Karleskind acknowledged that States could potentially use it to discriminate against children of same-sex parents. However, he supported the idea of introducing “a presumption of recognition of parentage until all avenues of appeal to the competent courts have been exhausted”.
For their part, Angel Dzhambazki (ECR, Bulgarian) and Gilles Lebreton (ID, French) expressed major reservations, in the name of national sovereignty, regarding family legislation. Gilles Lebreton also raised concerns about surrogate motherhood, seeing in the text a possible opening towards this practice, whereas the draft report explicitly states: “Given that surrogate motherhood remains a matter of national law, it is up to each Member State to decide whether and how to legislate in this area”.
In this respect, the representative of the European Commission emphasised that this proposal had no impact on national family law, but simply aimed to have parentage relationships established in one Member State recognised by the others. He also referred to the debate on the public policy exception, stressing the need to ensure that this clause does not undermine children’s rights or lead to discrimination. With regard to surrogate motherhood, he pointed out that the proposal focuses on compliance with the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights to prevent the exploitation of the women involved.
The vote is expected next month. (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)