Wallis opinion on the European Commission's proposal on Maintenance Obligations

1.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 19th Apr 2007

Diana Wallis, Liberal Democrat MEP and Vice President of the European Parliament, has presented her Opinion as draftsperson to the Legal Affairs Committee on the Commission's proposal on Maintenance Obligations. The proposal aims to simplify the current procedure for claiming maintenance across Europe.

Currently, for a creditor to claim maintenance from a debtor who lives in another Member State, procedures are necessary in both the Member State of the creditor and that of the debtor. The proposal reduces this two-step procedure to a one-step procedure, whereby decisions reached in the creditor's country can simply be enforced in other Member States

Presenting her report, Diana Wallis said:

"Sadly families' separating is an increasing phenomenon across Europe. For them this proposal is welcome. There were concerns that, following difficult discussions in Council, maybe the Commission was getting cold feet about the proposal as it was not mentioned in their recent strategy document.

"The European Parliament should give a clear signal that this proposal is timely and necessary. It should not be delayed or pulled about because of difficult political decisions. After all, this concerns the daily well-being of children and families.

Diana Wallis's report criticises the failure to deal with this issue under the co-decision process, and asks that the proposal make it clear that same-sex partnerships will also be covered.

She went on to say:

"In general, my opinion supports the Commission view that the law of the country of the residence of the payee (the claimant) should apply, although it may sometimes be appropriate to use another law if it can be shown this would be more practical, simple and economic.

"It also encourages Member States to get tough with non-payers by using innovative measures of enforcement i.e. withdrawing driving licences or possibly along American lines as reported recently by the BBC*."

For more information on the proposal, see:

http://www.dianawallis.org.uk/resources/sites/82.165.40.25-416d2c46d399e8.07328850/Maintenance%20obligations/draft+opinion.pdf

*(Stay-away fathers shamed by pizza; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6497263.stm)