A family lawyer today advised cross-border couples planning marriage in Europe to plan for divorce at the same time.
Frank Arndt, of UK firm Stowe Family Law, slammed current EU divorce laws as “a dog’s dinner of contradictions, absurdities and injustices.”
And he said proposals to streamline arrangements – which only nine of the 27 EU member states are backing – would only complicate divorce legalities between married couple from different member states.
Mr Arndt was speaking after MEPs in Brussels supported Commission plans to harmonise divorce dispute procedures across the 27 countries.
A European Parliament Committee said the move would smooth the path for about 170,000 cross-border EU divorces every year.
At the moment most member states do not allow couples to choose the law that applies to their divorce. The result is often “forum shopping” – when one partner launching divorce proceedings in the country where he or she thinks they will come off best.
Under the Commission plan couples would be able to choose which EU country deals with their divorce and provides safeguards against the choice creating disadvantages for one of the pair.
The problem is that the plan needs unanimous approval from EU governments, and only nine – France, Italy, Spain, Romania, Austria, Hungary, Greece, Slovenia and Luxembourg – are so far prepared to adopt it.
And the nine have agreed to cooperate between themselves if necessary to operate the scheme even if the others refuse.
The European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee backed a report by MEP Evelyne Gebhardt which calls for couples to be given full information about their divorce rights in all member states and the potential repercussions of choosing the jurisdiction of one country over another.
The issue now goes for a vote of the full European Parliament next month, before being considered by EU government ministers.
But Mr Arndt, head of the International Family Law Department at Stowe Family Law, said the plans as they stand would not streamline divorce arrangements in cross-border cases: “This is a split, not a harmonisation”, he said.
“We do need greater clarity in cross-European divorce cases but this is going to make matters even more complicated.”
He said the new law looked likely to apply only in the nine countries prepared to cooperate, but the result could be a “dramatic” impact on Britons married to people from those nine countries.
He went on: “Current EU law on this area is a dog’s dinner of contradictions, absurdities and injustices. ’Forum shopping’ – the act of choosing a legal jurisdiction because of apparent benefits of one country over another – is nothing new.
“The country in which divorce proceedings are filed is of huge significance in modern European cases.
“Determining which court has jurisdiction in cases has become a complex area, which must draw upon wildly differing standards of domicile or habitual residence, and guided by wieldy regulations which lay out the rules for where people should be able to settle matrimonial disputes.
“Establishing whether habitual residence can apply will have a dramatic bearing on the eventual settlement, while for anyone thinking about divorcing in England there is also the concept of domicile to take into account.”
Meanwhile, with final agreement on the new EU plan months away, Mr Arndt offered clear advice to those thinking about getting hitched: “I strongly advocate that international couples agree on any jurisdiction for potential future divorce proceedings prior to marriage.”
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