28-29 May Justice and Home Affairs Council

Date: 04/06/1998

MINISTERS signed a deal which should ensure that EU member states recognise each other's divorce rulings in future. Agreement on the 'Brussels II' convention ends years of legal wrangling and is seen by many observers as a significant step towards closer legal cooperation between EU governments in a variety of other areas. As well as covering mutual recognition of divorce rulings, the convention also deals with issues such as child custody and trial separation periods. Once it enters into force, it should prevent anomalies where divorces granted in one country are not recognised in another.

JUSTICE Commissioner Anita Gradin said the agreement put the current situation “in order”, while UK Home Secretary Jack Straw, who chaired the meeting, said the new procedures should make things easier for EU citizens wishing to end their marriages to spouses from different member states. The convention will not enter into force until it has been ratified by all 15 EU parliaments, which could take several years.

THE Council also approved a convention on driving disqualifications ensuring that, in future, drivers who lose their licences through committing a serious motoring offence abroad will not be able to continue driving at home. Like the divorce convention, however, it will not enter into force until it has been ratified by all EU governments. Straw said that while the deal closed one serious legal loophole, it was still limited in scope. The convention does not harmonise driving offences across the Union by, for example, introducing an EU-wide blood-alcohol limit for drink-driving.

FOLLOWING a televised open debate on organised crime, ministers signed an agreement with their counterparts from the central and eastern European countries lining up to join the Union. It commits both sides to closer cooperation in tackling cross-border crimes such as drug smuggling, prostitution rings and money laundering. Czech Interior Minister Cyril Svoboda said the agreement sent an important signal to the applicant states on the significance of the rule of law. “If we are incapable of making significant progress in this field, then that will complicate our negotiations,” he added.

LESS progress was made in talks aimed at setting up a European judicial network to improve contacts between the Union's courts. Following an earlier compromise agreement between Spain and the UK over the status of Gibraltar in any such set-up (essentially it will be excluded), France has argued that its external territories should also be exempted from the deal.

This prompted Luxembourg to express fears that any such move might be detrimental to sensitive capital movements.

LITTLE progress was made on efforts to agree the final text of the 'Eurodac' convention which aims to set out mutually agreed rules on the finger-printing of asylum seekers coming to the EU. Germany and Austria still want the deal to be extended to illegal immigrants, but many other member states see this as both morally problematic and hard to enforce in practice.