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Ending evasion

A new agreement signed by the European Union and the United States strengthens the system for child support and family maintenance payments to be enforced.

The Hague Maintenance Convention sets up a worldwide system for recovering child support and other family maintenance payments. It creates a common legal framework between the EU and non-EU countries, so that authorities cooperate in enforcing maintenance claims and debtors can no longer escape by leaving the EU. It also provides for free legal assistance in international child support cases. The Convention complements the EU's own rules on recognising and enforcing maintenance decisions, which will apply from June 18 2011.

In a statement, the European Commission said that with an estimated 16 million international couples in the EU and 30 million EU citizens living in non-EU countries, the issue of retrieving child maintenance from abroad will grow.

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When families break up, it is often the children who suffer the most,"
said Vice-President Viviane Reding, the EU’s Justice Commissioner.

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The EU already has robust rules to make sure children receive financial support if a parent lives away from them in another EU member state. The EU’s signing of this international Convention will ensure that children receive the same protection if a parent moves outside the EU,"
she said.

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Children’s interests must come first and parents should not be able to avoid their responsibilities by leaving the EU. I urge our international partners to join us and swiftly ratify this Convention,"
Reding said.

The new Convention will create a common legal framework between EU and the non-EU countries which ratify it to facilitate the international recovery of family maintenance claims. Since the vast majority of maintenance claims involve children, the Convention is first and foremost a measure to protect children, the European Commission said.

It creates a worldwide system of cooperation between national authorities, provides for free legal assistance in child support cases, and streamlines procedures for recognition and enforcement of court decisions on maintenance.

The new system will also speed up procedures to find hiding debtors, which are currently long and complicated. At the international level, the Convention completes the Hague system regarding family law already in place concerning child abduction, parental responsibility and international adoption.

Following the signature of the Convention by Hungary, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU and thus signed on behalf of the bloc, EU member states need to adopt a decision for the EU to formally conclude (or ratify) the Convention.

Agreement by justice ministers is expected at a Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting on June 9 and 10, the European Commission said. The instrument of ratification could then be deposited by the EU after the designated 18-month implementation period, with the Convention entering into force from 2013.

The United States, Norway and Ukraine have already signed the Convention, while a series of other countries who negotiated the Convention (including Japan, China, Russia, Australia, Canada and Brazil) are also expected to do so once ratification by the EU and US is under way.

In a background note, the European Commission said that the latest figures available were that 1.2 million divorces were recorded in the 27 EU countries during 2007.

These figures point to a significant problem in terms of handling and enforcing maintenance payments from absent parents who may not be resident in the EU, the Commission said.

The conclusion of the Convention by the EU will bolster the existing EU rules on the recognition and enforcement of maintenance decisions and administrative co-operation between the central authorities, by creating a harmonised set of rules within the EU with respect to third countries which will become contracting parties to the Convention, according to the Commission.