Brussels, 03/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Friday, the European Commission presented a new draft regulation on parental responsibility, proposing that the Fifteen should adopt a simple, common rule to determine which judge is competent to rule on matters such as parental responsibility, especially when a child is abducted by one of its parents. Namely: the judge at the child's usual place of residence is competent and has the last word when it comes to decisions on custody of the child and visiting rights, while the judge of the country where the child is on visit may take provisional emergency measures if he/she considers the safety of the child is at stake. The Commission also proposes to establish automatic and immediate recognition of decisions on visiting rights (suppression of exequatur). The text also rules on the question of legal competence for ruling on divorce or separation.
The above proposal is not new as such as it is a synthesis of the various texts on the table. Thus, there is a regulation dated May 2000 on the competence, recognition and implementation of decisions with regard to parental responsibility, but it is only valid in divorce cases and not in cases where couples have never married. Last September, the Commission had presented a proposal of regulation intended to extend this text to the children of unmarried couples and to clarify the rules of competence of the courts (EUROPE of 6 September). In July 2000, France had presented a proposal for abolishing the exequatur for visiting rights. Discussions were blocked in Council on the question of the judge competent, with crystallisation of divergence between France and Germany. At the informal JHA Council in Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, however, on 15 February, positions had grown much closer. Germany had accepted the principle whereby "the judge of the child's usual place of residency is the only one competent to rule in final appeal", announced Spanish Justice Minister Angel Acebes. The Commission now hopes "rapid progress" will be made, although there is not enough time for approving the text at the JHA Council in June. The proposal would not apply to Denmark.