Prague - European Union justice ministers were split on Friday over the question of EU rules for divorces between international couples, with 10 states pushing for closer cooperation despite the opposition of the EU executive, the European Commission. "At this moment, we do have enough countries" to launch a system of international cooperation on divorce issues, Czech Justice Minister Jiri Pospisil, who headed the informal meeting of EU counterparts in Prague, told journalists.
The current group of countries "is not enough" to launch such cooperation, "because at that moment we would have a very fragmented family law," retorted EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot.
The debate revolves around the question of which law should apply in cases when citizens of two different EU member states who are married to one another want a divorce - a question to which there is, at present, no standardized EU answer.
In 2006, the commission proposed an EU-wide rule setting out which national divorce law should apply in cases of international divorce, but Sweden vetoed it, arguing that it could bind Swedes to less liberal divorce laws.
"It would mean that the right to get a divorce would be not as good in Sweden, and I can't accept that because you can make agreements on many things, but not to lower your fundamental rights," Swedish Justice Minister Beatrice Ask said in Prague.
Following the block, nine EU states - Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovenia and Spain - wrote to the commission for permission to apply the EU-level law anyway. France was reportedly preparing to join the group in January.
That process, known as "enhanced cooperation," was created by the EU's Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997, and allows groups of at least eight member states to ask the commission to apply EU-level laws to them if the bloc as a whole has failed to approve the legislation.
"The fact that one country has big problems with moving forwards in this domain should encourage the others to go on. It's not the ideal solution, but I think that sometimes you have to use the possibilities offered by the treaty," Luxembourg Justice Minister Luc Frieden said.
The enhanced-cooperation system has never yet been used, and Barrot said on Friday that he did not see the need to start now.
"At least" half the EU's 27 member states would have to ask for enhanced cooperation for it to become realistic, he said.
But Pospisil said that support for the idea of enhanced cooperation "is actually rising" among EU states, and that the presidency is ready to open a debate on the subject.
