COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL Assessment on the application of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to accede to the 2007 Lugano Convention
Date: 2021-05-04
Institutions: Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers, European Commission
Subjects: EFTA countries, United Kingdom, accession to an agreement, civil law, commercial law, enforcement of ruling, international convention, international trade law, judicial cooperation, private international law

EN 

  EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 4.5.2021  COM(2021) 222 final  COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL Assessment on the application of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to accede to the 2007 Lugano Convention  
 
 
1.  INTRODUCTION  

1.1 The Lugano Convention 

The  2007  Convention  on  jurisdiction  and  the  recognition  and  enforcement  of  judgments  in 
civil  and  commercial  matters  (“the  Lugano  Convention”)1  has  been  concluded  between  the 
European Union, Denmark in its own right and three out of the four members of the European 
Free Trade Association (Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, referred to as “EFTA States”)2. 

Within the Union, the area of jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments 
in civil and commercial matters is governed by Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 (Brussels  Ia 
recast  Regulation).  The  Lugano  Convention  reflects  the  previous  state  of  Union  law  in  that 
area (Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001).     

The  Lugano  Convention  is  a  “double  convention”,  regulating  both  international  jurisdiction 
(i.e. the question whether a court is competent to hear a cross-border case) and the recognition 
and enforcement of foreign judgments in civil and commercial matters. 

The Convention is open to future members of the EFTA and to EU Member States in relation 
to  certain  of  their  non-European  territories.  Pursuant  to  Articles  70  to  72  of  the  Lugano 
Convention the accession to the Convention of any other State requires an application to the 
Depositary  which  is  transmitted  to  the  Contracting  Parties.  The  Contracting  Parties  shall 
endeavour  to  give  their  consent  at  the  latest  within  one  year  from  the  invitation  by  the 
Depositary3. Only if there is unanimous agreement of the Contracting Parties, the Depositary 
will  invite  the State  to  accede  to  the  Lugano  Convention.  After  the  instrument  of  accession 
has  been  deposited,  there  is  still  a  period  for  Contracting  Parties  to  object.  The  Convention 
will  enter  into  force  only  between  the  acceding  State  and  those  Contracting  Parties  that  did 
not  object  before the  first  day of the third month following the deposit  of the instrument  of 
accession. 

The external competence to conclude the 2007 Lugano Convention and thus also that to agree 
to the accession of a new Party and to object to the entry into force of the Convention between 
the Union and a new Party lies exclusively with the European Union.   

1.2 The application of the United Kingdom   

The Lugano Convention applied to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 
(“the United Kingdom”) until 31 January 2020 via its EU membership. For the duration of the 
transition  period,  which  ended  on  31  December  2020,  the  other  Parties  to  the  Lugano 
Convention  had  been  notified  by  the  EU  that  the  United  Kingdom  was  to  be  treated  as  a 
Member State for the purposes of international agreements to which the Union was a Party, 
which covered the Lugano Convention4. 

1 Its predecessor was the 1988 Lugano Convention. 
2 Liechtenstein is not a Party to the Lugano Convention.  
3 This is not a binding deadline.  
4 Cf. Article 129(1) of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement. 

1 

 
 
                                                           
On 8 April 2020, the United Kingdom applied to accede to the 2007 Lugano Convention in its 
own right. This application was submitted to the Depositary of the Lugano Convention5. The 
United Kingdom proposed to extend the application of the Convention to Gibraltar6. 

By  a  letter  of  14  April  2020,  the  Depositary  officially  transmitted  the  application  and  the 
related  information  to  the  Lugano  Contracting  Parties,  including  the  European  Union, 
represented by the European Commission. 

2.  COMMISSION ANALYSIS  

In  view  of  the  nature  of  the  Lugano  Convention  (see  below,  section  2.1.)  and  the  existing 
framework  of  judicial  cooperation  with  third  countries  (see  below,  section  2.2.),  the 
Commission considers that the EU should not give its consent to the accession of the United 
Kingdom to the Lugano Convention. 

2.1 Nature of the Lugano Convention  

The  Lugano  Convention  mirrors  the  EU’s  rules  of  international  jurisdiction  and  its  quasi-
automatic system of recognition and enforcement of civil and commercial judgments7 vis-à-
vis  the  EFTA  States.  It  thus  extends  the  benefits  of  the  EU  framework  of  recognition  and 
enforcement of judgments to these countries as well as to the EU Member States with regard 
to  those  countries.  As  a  consequence,  it  facilitates  greatly  the  access  of  EFTA  States  civil 
judgments to the EU’s area of justice in civil and commercial matters and vice versa. 

The Lugano Convention represents an essential feature of a common area of justice and is a 
flanking measure for the EU’s economic relations with the EFTA/EEA countries. With 
Norway and Iceland, these relations are based on the EEA Agreement8, which brings together 
the  EU  Member  States  and  the  EFTA/EEA  States9  in  the  internal  market.    Switzerland's 
economic  and  trade  relations  with  the  EU  are  governed  through  a  series  of  bilateral 
agreements  where  Switzerland  has  agreed  to  take  over  certain  aspects  of  EU  legislation  in 
exchange  for  accessing  part  of  the  EU's  single  market.  The  current  Contracting  Parties  all 
represent this context. These countries participate, at least partly, in the EU’s internal market, 
comprising the free movement of goods, services, capital and persons.  

Thus, the Lugano Convention supports the EU’s relationship with third countries which have 
a particularly close regulatory integration with the EU, including by aligning with (parts 
of)  the  EU  acquis.  Though  the  Convention  is,  in  principle,  open  to  accession  of  “any  other 
State”  upon  invitation  from  the  Depositary  upon  unanimous  agreement  of  the  Contracting 
Parties (see above), it is not the appropriate general framework for judicial cooperation with 
any given third country.  It is not aimed to all third countries, as can be seen from the fact that 

5 The Swiss Federal Council. 
6 During the EU membership of the United Kingdom, the Lugano Convention applied to Gibraltar.  
7 It does not reflect the latest state of EU law as per Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012, which completely abolished 

the need for a procedure to declare a foreign judgment enforceable. 

8 Agreement on the European Economic Area, which entered into force on 1.1.1994.  
9 Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. 

2 

 
 
 
                                                           
since  1988  (when  the  first  Lugano  Convention  was  agreed),  only  Poland  has  joined  the 
Convention  as  a  third  country,  but  it  joined  the  Convention  on  its  path  towards  the  EU 
accession. There is no third country other than EFTA/EEA countries Party to the Convention. 
The United Kingdom is, since 1 January 2021, a third country with an “ordinary” Free Trade 
Agreement facilitating trade but not including any fundamental freedoms and policies of the 
internal  market.  The  Convention  is  based  on  a  high  level  of  mutual  trust  among  the 
Contracting  Parties  and  represents  an  essential  feature  of  a  common  area  of  justice 
commensurate to  the high  degree of  economic interconnection based on the applicability of 
the four freedoms. 

2.2 International framework for the EU’s civil justice cooperation with third countries 

The EU’s long-standing approach is that the appropriate framework for cooperation with third 
countries  in  the  field  of  civil  judicial  cooperation  is  provided  by  the  multilateral  Hague 
Conventions,  i.e.  the  2005  Hague  Choice  of  Court  Convention10  and  the  2019  Hague 
Judgments  Convention11.  The  EU  has  concluded  the  2005  Choice  of  Court  Convention  in 
201412.    The  2005  Hague  Choice  of  Court  Convention  is  also  a  “double  convention”,  but 
applies only where parties have made an exclusive contractual choice of court in a civil and 
commercial matter. The 2019 Hague Judgments Convention is a simple convention regulating 
only recognition and enforcement. It does not regulate direct jurisdiction of courts.  

Consistent  with  this  approach,  the  Political  Declaration  on  the  framework  for  the  future 
relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom of 17 October 2019 refers 
to the framework of the Hague Conventions13; the option of the United Kingdom acceding to 
the Lugano Convention is neither mentioned in the Political Declaration, nor in any other joint 
EU/UK  document  on  the  framework  of  the  future  relationship.  Nor  is  it  mentioned  in  the 
Trade  and  Cooperation  Agreement  between  the  European  Union  and  the  European  Atomic 
Energy Community, of the one part, and the United Kingdom,  of the other part, which was 
agreed on 24 December 2020 and is provisionally applied since 1 January 202114. 

Before the end of the transition period, the 2005 Hague Choice of Court Convention applied 
in the United Kingdom,  on the basis of its EU membership and, thereafter, of the transition 
period provided for in the Withdrawal Agreement. Since 1 January 2021, the United Kingdom 
is  party  to  this  Convention15  in  its  own  right16.    Thus,  this  Convention  covers  the  relations 

10 Convention of 30 June 2005 on Choice of Court Agreements. 
11 Convention of 2 July 2019 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial 
Matters. The multilateral approach is reiterated for instance in the Council Conclusions on the Future Of 
Civil Justice Cooperation, the Justice and Home Affairs Council in December 2019 under the Finnish 
Presidency, 2019/C 419/02, OJ C 419/6 of 12/12/2019.  On multilateralism, see Joint Communication to the 
European Parliament and the Council on strengthening the EU’s contribution to rules-based multilateralism 
JOIN(2021) 3 final of 17.2.2021.  

12 Council Decision 2014/887/EU of 4 December 2014 on the approval, on behalf of the European Union, of the  

Hague Convention of 30 June 2005 on Choice of Courts Agreements, OJ L 353, 10.12.2014, p.5. 

13 OJ C 34, 31.01.2020, p. 1.  
14 OJ L 444, 31.12.2020, p. 14. 
15 The 2005 Hague Choice of Court Convention only applies when the parties have made an exclusive choice of 
court clause, but not where an asymmetric or non-exclusive clause has been chosen or where there is no 
choice of court clause. 

3 

 
 
 
                                                           
between  the  EU  and  the  United  Kingdom  within  its  scope.  The  Commission  is  planning  to 
propose EU conclusion  of the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention in  the near future.  In the 
case  the  United  Kingdom  concludes  that  Convention,  it  would  apply  to  the  future  judicial 
cooperation with the EU.  

3.  CONCLUSION 

In view of the above, the Commission takes the view that the European Union should not give 
its consent to the accession of the United Kingdom to the 2007 Lugano Convention. For the 
European  Union,  the  Lugano  Convention  is  a  flanking  measure  of  the  internal  market  and 
relates  to  the  EU-EFTA/EEA  context.  In  relation  to  all  other  third  countries  the  consistent 
policy  of  the  European  Union  is  to  promote  cooperation  within  the  framework  of  the 
multilateral Hague Conventions. The United Kingdom is a third country without a special link 
to the internal market. Therefore, there is no reason for the European Union to depart from its 
general  approach  in  relation  to  the  United  Kingdom.  Consequently,  the  Hague  Conventions 
should  provide  the  framework  for  future  cooperation  between  the  European  Union  and  the 
United Kingdom in the field of civil judicial cooperation. 

Stakeholders  concerned,  and  in  particular  practitioners  engaged  in  cross-border  contractual 
matters involving the European Union, should take this into account when making a choice of 
international jurisdiction17.   

With this communication, the Commission informs the European Parliament and the Council 
of its assessment, and gives them an opportunity to express their views, before it will inform 
the Lugano Depositary accordingly.  

16 The United Kingdom extended the accession to Gibraltar. 
17  See readiness notice to stakeholders on withdrawal of the United Kingdom and EU rules in the field of civil 

justice and private international law published on 18 January 2019, updated on 27 August 2020 and available 
at https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/civil-justice-judicial-cooperation-civil-and-commercial-matters_en 

4