At their EU Council meeting on Friday 6 March, the European Justice Ministers adopted a political agreement (‘general approach’) on the proposal for a regulation to be presented in May 2023 (see EUROPE 13191/15), which is intended to promote the recognition, from one Member State to another, of protection measures for people who can no longer take certain decisions on their own, due to an age-related illness, a disability or a reduction in their faculties.
Chairing the discussion session, the Cypriot Deputy Minister for Migration and International Protection, Nicholas Ioannides, defended a compromise presented as sufficiently flexible to secure a broad majority. “We have simplified the procedure, as the host Member State no longer has to give its authorisation. However, this Member State may oppose this placement, if necessary”, he explained with regard to the placement of an adult in another Member State. He also specified that the future European certificate could be requested “for representation purposes, but also for aid support purposes”.
In addition, the regulation must define which court has jurisdiction in the event of a cross-border dispute, which law applies and the conditions under which a protection order or power of representation issued abroad can be recognised and enforced.
The EU Council also confirmed that the interconnected protection registers project would be abandoned for the time being, as it was deemed too cumbersome in administrative and financial terms. However, the European Commission will have to re-examine this possibility once the text has come into force.
While the Commissioner for Justice, Michael McGrath, welcomed “a decisive step in the legislative process and for our citizens”, he argued that a chapter devoted to registers would have made administrative and judicial cooperation “faster and simpler”. He also expressed concern about the operation of the European certificate, which would only have effect in the issuing State if national law so allowed.
For the Member States, while the agreement reached is welcome, it should have been more ambitious. Ireland has said that it would have liked more innovative wording and more guarantees on the certificate. Portugal, like Malta, argued in a joint declaration that the text could have gone further on the participation of the adults concerned. According to the Czech Republic, the disappearance of the chapter on the interconnection of registers is regrettable and the Annexes would benefit from improvement.
Poland, which had made the issue a priority during its Presidency, also hailed it a “success”. Finland reiterated the importance of this text as a means of protecting vulnerable adults from property abuse.
Austria and Germany raised the issue of the future regulation’s consistency with the 2000 Hague Convention on the Protection of Adults and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The compromise was also reached without the support of Spain, which considered that the text was not ambitious enough. The ‘general approach’ adopted by the Ministers must now serve as the basis for negotiations with the European Parliament.
The text: https://aeur.eu/f/l29 (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)