The European Commission began a public consultation last week to collect data and opinions on future EU legislation on divorce between spouses who are citizens of two different member states. The new legislation is supposed to be adopted by 2006. The Executive accompanied the launch of the consultation with the presentation of a Green Paper, in which the current difficulties of judges in establishing the law applicable in the various cases are explained. The Green Paper also proposes solutions to rationalise the complex of national laws regulating the matter, very different from one country to another, and especially to “increase legal security and respond to the legitimate needs of citizens”. At the present time there is no EU provision that determines the competence of the courts in cases of transnational divorce (almost 100,000 per year), with the consequence of prolonging the judicial process and leading to often discordant sentences that sap confidence in the certainty of the law and create every kind of problem not least psychological for couples, their families, and especially for their younger children. For further information, consult the website http://europa.eu.int/comm/justice_home/news/intro/news_intro_en.htm
