Contracten en alimentatie-verplichting beter gewaarborgd met nieuwe EU-wetgeving (en)

The Commission has adopted two new proposals for Regulations concerning civil justice, one of them to facilitate the recovery of maintenance claims in the European Union and the other to modernise the rules determining the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I). The proposals are well within the political mandate given by the Tampere European Council in 1999 and the mutual recognition programme adopted by the Council and the Commission at the end of 2000. The objectives of this programme were confirmed by the Hague Programme adopted by the European Council in November 2004.

"I am particularly happy to present two initiatives that seek to simplify life for individual citizens", said Franco Frattini i, Vice-president of the European Commission responsible for Justice, Freedom and Security. "Our ambition is to come up with a simple and effective response to the daily concerns of maintenance creditors who try in vain to obtain recovery of the payments to which they are entitled and which correspond to their subsistence needs. There is a genuine social need here, particularly in terms of guaranteeing better living and schooling conditions for our children, who are the most directly concerned."

Regarding the Rome I proposal, the Vice-president added: "By providing foreseeable and simplified rules, the Rome I proposal on the law applicable to contracts will enable Europe's citizens and firms to make more of the possibilities offered by the internal market."