Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-17-Speech-5-046"
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"en.20001117.4.5-046"2
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like, first of all, to congratulate Mrs Banotti on her excellent report, which is part of thorough, ongoing work on protecting and guaranteeing children’s rights. As the House knows, the Commission and the Council have the firm intention of adopting a programme of mutual recognition of judgments in civil matters by the end of the year. Priority was specifically given in this programme to family disputes, as laid down by the Tampere European Council. The French government’s initiative is the first practical step towards this. I should like to emphasise that, although this report and this subject are being discussed on a Friday morning, I hope that the media, which so often says that European debates have nothing to do with the everyday lives of our citizens, understands that, on this occasion, with this subject, we are addressing an issue that affects not only the life but also the hearts of Europe’s citizens.
In May, we adopted a regulation incorporating the Brussels II Convention into Community law. This regulation simplifies and clarifies rules on defining the competent court and the relevant law for regulating divorces, separations and the allocation of parental control. This French initiative therefore refers to the scope of the Brussels II Regulation and is, if I may put it this way, a revolutionary initiative. I say this because, for the first time, it enshrines the abolition of the
for the automatic recognition of a judgment by a court in a Member State by the legal system of another Member State. While it is true, however, that it is a great step forward from this point of view, I also share the opinion of Mrs Banotti and other honourable Members that it is deplorable that the scope of this regulation should be limited to the protection of children of marriages that are recognised as such by the law. This fact is bound by the scope of the Brussels II legislation itself. What I therefore wish to tell Parliament is that, in the action programme on the mutual recognition of judgments in civil matters – which we hope will be adopted by the end of this year – the Commission proposes that the first and utmost priority should be given to extending the scope of the Brussels II regulation and, consequently, of this regulation on rights of access, covering both the children of married couples and those of unmarried couples without discrimination.
With regard to the content of the document – as you know, this is not a Commission initiative – I should simply like to make three observations. The first is that we are working together with the Council in order to improve the text, specifically with regard to its most complex issue, which is the delicate balance between the need to guarantee that the child will be returned immediately after the visit, and also the need to safeguard the possibility of guaranteeing protection of the child whenever this should prove necessary. We are addressing a tragic issue here, that of the abduction or improper withholding of children, which is, unfortunately, much more common than we might think. It is difficult to find this balance, but we are convinced that it will be possible, with the help of your amendments and with the climate of dialogue that exists with the Council, to reach a solution that is both technically flawless and, above all, workable.
With regard to the amendments, I wish to emphasise that the Commission has some difficulties with Amendment No 1, tabled by Mrs Banotti, because this is not merely a procedural amendment, but an amendment that takes us into the field of the harmonisation of substantive family law, establishing a lower limit of one day for the exercising of rights of access. I am sure that the intention behind this amendment is valid, but it could have harmful effects if we consider that courts will only grant rights of access when they feel that this must be for a whole day. There are solutions in which the courts grant rights of access for a period of less than a day for reasons to do with the protection of the child itself. I feel that we should lay down an indicative criterion but not a legal obligation, trusting judges who are called on to apply the law to be reasonable enough to guarantee that the rights of access they grant are effective.
I should also like to say that although this is not the subject of a direct amendment by Mrs Banotti, the Commission has difficulties with the amendment to Article 17 of the regulation proposed by the French Government. We have difficulties with this because we feel that this article places too much emphasis on the purely intergovernmental origins of judicial cooperation. It is worth saying, however, that the issue of civil judicial cooperation was communitised by the Treaty of Amsterdam. Therefore, the functioning of the committee that Article 17 is challenging should not be purely intergovernmental. The Commission should play a more active role, as it does with regard to the European judicial network in civil matters, an issue which has, in fact, been submitted for the opinion of the European Parliament.
I shall conclude, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, by saying that I am convinced that, with the adoption of this regulation that has a limited range but which is of symbolic value and important practical application, I am convinced, I repeat, that we are taking an initial, important step towards bringing the European Union closer to the citizens, particularly those citizens who, because of the circumstances of their lives, have had the misfortune to experience the tragedy of separation or divorce, which is always a tragedy, but which should certainly not have repercussions for every child’s right to happiness."@en1
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