WRITTEN QUESTION E-1887/00 by Olivier Dupuis (TDI) to the Commission. Infringement of the New York Convention on the rights of the child.
Date: 2000-06-09
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: France, Italy, area of freedom, security and justice, competence of the Member States, custody

6.3.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 72 E/143

(2001/C 72 E/179)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1887/00

by Olivier Dupuis (TDI) to the Commission

(9 June 2000)

Subject: Infringement of the New York Convention on the rights of the child

On 25 September 1999, Lucio Congiu settled in Italy with his twin sons, Antoine and Charles, after their
mother had left the family home at La Bastidonne, France, leaving the two children with their father, to
whom she was not married. Subsequently, the children(cid:146)s mother applied to a French family court; the
court decided to issue an international arrest warrant for Mr Congiu on 26 September 1999, on the
grounds of refusing to hand back the children, although there had been no previous proceedings giving
the mother custody of the children or visiting rights. On 30 November 1999 the French family court
judged the father guilty of kidnapping and declared that he had forfeited his rights as a father. And
although the children were then returned to their mother, the court decided to pursue the case and
requested that Mr Congiu be extradited for child abduction.

The scale of the judicial resources deployed in this case to settle a dispute between parents over the
custody of children is a clear infringement of the New York International Convention on the rights of the
child.

Does the Commission not consider it necessary,
in the light of its new powers under the Treaty of
Amsterdam, to make an effort to persuade the Member States involved in this case to respect their
international undertakings and review the decisions concerning Mr Congiu? More generally, does the
Commission not think that it should take action urgently to prevent already difficult situations becoming
even more problematic because parents are nationals of different Member States?

Answer given by Mr Vitorino on behalf of the Commission

(25 July 2000)

The Commission would point out to the Honourable Member that it cannot express its views either on the
case in question or on the judgments delivered vis-(cid:224)-vis the person mentioned.

Moreover, the new provisions of the EC Treaty do not give the Commission the authority to make
representations to the Member States concerned, namely France and Italy, with a view to amending the
decisions taken. It is exclusively for the person in question to exercise his lawful rights, to present his
defence de facto and de iure before the courts concerned and, where necessary, to appeal against the
decisions taken.

The Commission shares the Honourable Member(cid:146)s concern as regards the need to bear in mind the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and in particular Article 9 thereof, which expressly
provides that the child has the right to maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on
a regular basis.

At present, however, the Commission does not envisage proposing Community rules on child abduction.
All the Member States are already party to the Hague Convention of 1980 on the civil aspects of
international child abduction. The main aims of the Convention are to organise cooperation within a
network of designated central authorities, to secure the prompt return of children wrongfully removed or
detained in a Contracting State and to ensure that rights of custody and access under the law of one
Contracting State are enforced in the other Contracting States. There is also a 1980 Council of Europe
Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions concerning Custody of Children and Restoration
of Custody of Children, to which Italy and France are Contracting Parties. In addition, the Council of
Europe is preparing a convention on contacts with children, which proposes operational rules for the
implementation of Article 9 of the above United Nations Convention.

C 72 E/144

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

6.3.2001

At the specifically Community level, the Regulation of 29 May 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition
and enforcement of
judgments in matrimonial matters provides that rights of access and custody
recognised or granted by the authorities of one Member State to parents of children of both spouses in
the event of the dissolution of matrimonial ties are to be recognised and enforced in other Member States.
Further progress is foreseeable and one day decisions taken in another Member State, in particular with
regard to parental responsibility, may be enforced promptly and without formalities, albeit subject to
guarantees.

Rights of custody and access are determined by the competent national authorities acting under the
Community rules, international instruments or international private law. It is for each Member State to
decide if and how the right of custody or access is to be granted to one or other of the parents and what
civil or criminal penalties are to be applied should one of the parents fail to respect these rights.

(2001/C 72 E/180)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1890/00

by Bart Staes (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(16 June 2000)

Subject: Use of languages by the Commission in the Brussels Capital Region

In the new contracts of the European Commission Research Directorates General Shared Cost RTD CPF
Forms Electra A6 for shared-cost R&D projects under the Fifth Framework Programme (1999-2000), the
Commission uses only the address Rue de la Loi (cid:129) Bruxelles. This gives the misleading impression that the
19 Brussels communes are French-speaking. According to the Constitution of the Belgian Federation, these
communes form part of the bilingual Brussels Capital Region.

1. Will the Commission and its departments in future use both the Dutch and French addresses for their
correspondence, in view of the bilingual status of the 19 communes in the Brussels Capital Region? If not,
why do the Commission and its departments refuse to acknowledge the bilingual character of the
communes concerned by using both the Dutch and French-language addresses in their correspondence?

2. Will the Commission and its departments in future use both the Dutch and French addresses for their
correspondence in order to avoid displaying any preference for the Dutch-speaking or the French-speaking
community in the Brussels Capital Region? If not, why do the Commission and its departments
demonstrate their preference for the French-speaking community by using only French-language addresses
in their correspondence?

Answer given by Mr Busquin on behalf of the Commission

(28 July 2000)

The Commission acknowledges the bilingual status of the boroughs within the metropolitan Brussels
region. The Commission(cid:146)s headed notepaper in Brussels gives the address in both French and Dutch where
the heading is in a language other than those two. The rules applies not only to mail but also to any other
printed matter or publication.

Those rules were covered by an instruction sent out to the (Commission(cid:146)s) departments on 6 March 1995
and have also been incorporated into the Manual of Procedures (cf. Item 17.5.2.).

The example quoted by the Honourable Member was due to an error. The Commission has taken action to
remind the departments concerned of the abovementioned rules and to ensure that this error is corrected
in the next publication.