Brussels, 04/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the European Commission is expected to adopt by written procedure a proposal of regulation aimed at extending to children of unmarried couples a regulation of May 2000 on the relevance, recognition and implementation of decisions concerning parental responsibility. The regulation is also aimed at clarifying the rules of jurisdiction, which determine the jurisdiction of the Member State that may or must handle the matter. This work will be completed by examination of a French proposal of August 2000 on the suppression of the exequatur procedure for visiting rights. The Commission proposes that these three instruments should be grouped into a single instrument.
The 1347/2000 regulation of 29 May 2000 fixed the rules of territorial jurisdiction, recognition and execution of decisions for children of married or divorced couples only. With its new proposal, the Commission aims to extend these rules and the principle of mutual recognition of judgements to all decisions on parental responsibility, whatever the nature of the relations between the parents. The proposal comprises a series of rules intended to determine in which Member State a case concerning parental responsibility should be judged. This is normally the jurisdiction of the Member State where the child is normally resident, but a series of rules allows this principle to be made more flexible (jurisdiction of the Member State of the last decision, if the child has only recently moved home; jurisdiction of the choice of parental responsibility holders; jurisdiction of the State where the child happens to be even if the child does not live there, if this proves necessary in order to protect the child …). For the recognition and implementation of decisions, the proposal directly refers back to the terms of Regulation 1347/2000, which mainly insists on the need to protect children, in the case of "conjugal crisis", against the risk of being carried off by one of the parents (see OJ L 160 of 30.06.2000). The proposal concerns all the aspects of parental responsibility other than maintenance allowance, which are the subject of another regulation (44/2001). The Commission, moreover, suggests that this regulation should also be modified for all procedures concerning parental responsibility. Pursuant to the specific provisions for the following three countries in justice matters, the text will not apply to Denmark, and will only apply to Ireland and to the United Kingdom if they so request. The regulation should apply one year after its publication in the Official Journal. Only the article stipulating that each Member State must, within three months, provide a list of the central authorities, jurisdictions and methods of appeal must apply twenty-two days after publication in the Official Journal.