EU nations go own way on divorce

Couples who divorce but hail from different European countries may find a legal maze simplified and bills potentially falling, if new laws pass as proposed yesterday.

For the first time since a 1997 treaty change introduced the possibility, a group of 10 EU nations want to go their own way under a system of "enhanced cooperation" and seal their own pact.

Austria, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovakia and Spain need approval by EU justice ministers to draw up a shared law settling how courts deal with divorce cases that cross their borders.

Couples would be able to choose which country's laws should govern their divorce, in a bid to clamp down on so-called 'divorce shopping', where nationality or the place where a marriage took place can give one spouse an unfair advantage.

But the principle behind the proposal, which critics say would create a 'Europe within Europe', has been controversial.

Sweden has previously blocked attempts to harmonise divorce law across the 27 EU states, while Malta only permits legal separation, not full divorce.

EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding said yesterday that "several" other countries were ready to "jump on board", but did not name them.

Some 300,000 marriages between mixed-nationality couples are celebrated each year in the 27-nation EU and while around 140,000 divorces are announced.