The joint research of all partners, Impact Report on Parentage in the EU acquis, has been published.
Uniform (PIL and substantial) rules on parenthood do not exist (yet) and national rules on this topic vary significantly. This impacts the circulation of family status across borders, in particular when parenthood follows recourse to Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) and affects, more broadly, the exercise of free movement rights as well as human rights of children and their families. In the EU context, the absence of uniform PIL rules on parenthood also impacts on the operativity of the existing EU instruments adopted in the field of judicial cooperation in civil matters and mainly the instruments on parental responsibility, maintenance or succession. As a consequence, the existence of a parent-child legal relationship, as well as the incidental
recognition of a judgment on parenthood, are determined by domestic PIL. In connection to public documents, whilst circulation of a birth certificate’s form is regulated by EU law, it is for domestic PIL rules to assess how its (factual and legal) content shall be considered in national legal order.
This European Impact Report aims at identifying the parenthood issues arising in connection to the existing relevant EU PIL instruments: whilst parenthood is clearly relevant in the application of PIL instruments dealing with family law, other pieces of legislation will be barely (if at all) affected.
The Report identifies and assess those issues from the PIL perspective – considering jurisdiction, applicable law, circulation of judgments and public documents.
