Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-13-Speech-3-386"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20020313.17.3-386"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
". – Mr President, I will, of course, do my best. The Tampere European Council identified visiting rights as a priority in the creation of a single judicial area where decisions can circulate freely from one Member State to another. This priority responds to the social reality of people increasingly relocating from one Member State to another with families breaking up and reforming.
Building on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union provides that the best interests of the child must be a primary consideration in all actions relating to him or her. As has been pointed out, the ‘best interests of the child’ is a fluid concept that is open to different interpretations and ultimately rests on the appreciation by the judge of all the elements of the case at hand. A multidisciplinary project that sheds light on the state of play as regards the different conceptions of the ‘best interests of the child’ would usefully complement our work by promoting mutual understanding of legal systems and thus reinforcing the requisite mutual trust for the free circulation of decisions. Such a project would be eligible for financing under the above-mentioned new framework programme for judicial cooperation in civil matters.
As the honourable Member has said, the Commission is now working on a new proposal that brings together the Commission proposal on parental responsibility of September 2001, the French initiative on rights of access of July 2000 and the Brussels II Regulation. We expect to be able to present this proposal in April 2002.
As was the case with the Commission proposal and the French initiative, the aim is to fashion solutions that build on the mutual trust inherent in a common judicial area to best protect the child. This means going beyond the balance struck in the Hague Conventions while, at the same time, recognising their value in addressing international situations. To this end, in November 2001, the Commission presented a proposal on the signature of the 1996 Hague Convention.
The Commission fully shares your concern about making progress fast. This now appears possible, especially in the light of the recognition during the informal meeting of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers in Santiago de Compostela in February 2002 of the need for a Community-specific solution giving the final say in cases of child abduction to the Member State of the child's habitual residence with the Member State to which the child has been abducted being able to take provisional measures only. We trust that this work will continue to benefit from the support of the European Parliament.
Honourable Members are perfectly correct in pointing out the importance of mutual trust between national judges for the execution of decisions issued in another Member State. For several years the Commission has, through the Grotius and Grotius-civil programmes, continuously supported projects aimed at bringing together judges from different countries to improve mutual understanding of legal systems between Member States. A significant number of these projects have focused on family law.
Support for such projects will continue to be available through the new framework programme for judicial cooperation in civil matters, to be adopted by the end of March. The new programme, which will apply from 2002-2006, will be endowed with higher budgetary means than the previous programmes. You may wish to know that, as concerns the implementation of the new programme in 2002, the Commission is considering giving priority to training for legal practitioners on Community instruments in the area of judicial cooperation in civil matters, including, for example, the Brussels II Regulation.
Moreover, the new programme will also allow for direct actions taken by the Commission to ensure the sound application and implementation of Community law. Such actions will, needless to say, also cover instruments in the family law area.
Mention should be made of the European Judicial Network in civil matters, which will be operational towards the end of the year. The network will also facilitate mutual understanding of the legal systems of the Member States, as well as providing a means of identifying and solving problems related to judicial cooperation in civil matters.
Consequently, the Commission considers that the necessary instruments – as concerns judicial cooperation in civil matters, including the family law area – are already in place to reach the objectives the Members refer to."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples