www.euro-family.eu
PSEFS, an acronym that stands for “Personalized Solution in European Family and Succession Law”, is a project co-funded by the European Union’s Justice Programme (2014-2020).
The main purpose of the project is to individuate the role of private autonomy with regard to the UE Regulations 2016/1103, of 24 June 2016, implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of jurisdiction, applicable law and the recognition and enforcement of decisions in matters of matrimonial property regimes, and 2016/1104, of 24 June 2016, implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of jurisdiction, applicable law and the recognition and enforcement of decisions in matters of the property consequences of registered partnerships, as well as to elaborate appropriate regulation solutions, having respect to the EU typologies of mixed marriages and transnational families.
The project is led by a partnership between the University of Camerino (Italy), the University of Rijeka (Croatia), the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), the University of Almeria (Spain) and the Foundation “Scuola di Alta Formazione Giuridica” (Italy).
Scenario of the project: A study commissioned by the European Commission revealed that already in 2002 more than 5 million EU citizens were living in a Member State of which they had not the nationality, and some 2.5 million items of real property were owned by spouses in Member States different from that of their residence (Green Paper, COM (2006) 400 final). According to data extracted in 2016 by Eurostat, a little more than a fifth of EU households in 2014 included at least one immigrant, regardless of migration generation or migration background (First and second-generation immigrants – statistics on households). Furthermore, it was reported in 2017 that a total of 4.7 million people immigrated to one of the EU-28 MSs during 2015 (2.4 million from a non-EU MS), while at least 2.8 million emigrants have left an EU MS (Migration and migrant population statistics). Apparently, there is a large number of transnational families in EU. Based on the citizenship of their members, these families may be intra-EU, mixed EU, and non-EU. They also differ in their structure (traditional nuclear, extended, single-parent, childless or singles), in their formal legal recognition (married, registered or de facto couples) or in their sexual composition (heterosexual or homosexual), and much of these differences are related to the values and cultural and social codes dominant in the countries their members originate from. Precisely because of these differences, all transnational families experience similar problems when faced with legal issues appearing as parts of their “everyday life”. In a view of those social developments, the Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and acceptance and enforcement of authentic instruments in matters of succession and on the creation of a European Certificate of Succession, and more recently the Council Regulation (EU) 2016/1103 in matters of matrimonial property regimes and the Council Regulation (EU) 2016/1104 in matters of the property consequences of registered partnerships have been added to the EU legislation on private international law. The project is intended to make available the tools for raising awareness of the new legislative instruments and especially of their specific mechanisms which are aimed at securing more legal certainty to transnational families when it comes to their property relations.
