Ladies and Gentleman, Dear Colleagues,
It is a great honour for me to be here and to greet you atthe 3rd Congress of EuropeanNotaries on behalf of the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Please,allow me to talk to you about the objectivesof the Hungarian Presidency in the field of justice and the progress made under our Presidency.
In this half year period we had the opportunity to see from the perspective of thePresidency how fast European decision-makingis, how many dossiers a Presidency hasto tackle and also how hard it is to reach consensus in areas where national legislations differ somuch. Indeed in some areas there is little common ground to start from, as concepts that seem to be evident from the point of view of a Hungarian judge, advocate or notary may not even exist in another country of the European Union.
There is no doubt that in the justice area we have concluded a very successful Presidency. We managed to make progress in almost all the areas defined onourpriority list, in our national programme or in the programme of the trio.
We adopted a partial general approach on the proposal for a directive on the European Investigation Order, we prepared a roadmap in the area of theprotection of victims, and the June Council meeting adopted a general approach on the proposal for a directive on attacks against informationsystems.
In the area of judicial cooperation in civil matters the draft regulation on succession and wills was one of our priorities.Our effortswere rewarded: we closed the Justice and Home Affaires Council’s meeting with a political compromise on the draft regulation.
In addition, the review of the Brussels I Regulation on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters began during our Presidency.The intensive work of experts resulted in a first working party reading, on which the further codification work may be based.
Also in the area of judicial cooperation in civil matters we started negotiations on the regulation on matrimonial property regimes and on the European Protection Order in civil matters. We treated the accession of the European Union to the European Convention of Fundamental Rights as a priority, and expert level negotiations were closed under our half year period.
We also concluded the Council negotiations on the content of a Regulation on the electronic version of the Official Journal of the European Union.
The Hungarian Presidency paid special attention to Roma issues and the rights of children. Our particularpriority was to adopt the EU Framework on National Roma Integration Strategies and to provide new momentum for the solution of this important European issue, and we have reached our goals in this field, too.
Dr. Tibor Navracsics, Minister for Public Administration and Justice of Hungary, on behalf of the Presidency and in the name of the European Union signed the Hague Convention of 2007 on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance. It means that after the entry into force of the Convention EU citizens will have the possibility to recover maintenance also from non EU countries in a prompt and simple procedure with the assistance of the Central Authorities ofthe state parties.
The Hungarian Presidencypaid special attention to the regulation on European Private Company, but given the factthatthe expert-levelworkhasjuststarted this semester on this issue, the breakthrough is stillawaited.(Since this is a topic of special interest for you, I would like to mention that the Regulation on the Statute for a European Private Company was a priority of the Hungarian Presidency, we wanted to reach a compromise and adopt the regulation in the Council. It is our conviction that this new European company form would greatly enhance the competitiveness of European companies. During the past six months the Hungarian Presidency did everything it could in order to reach a compromise between the Member States, we had several ministerial level consultations with Germany, we had three councillors and two Coreper meetings before the Competitiveness Council on 30th of May. Unfortunately, we did not succeedin this area, so the Council must continue its work or the Union mustfind new ways to improve the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises and to strengthen the internal market.)
Laying down the basis of the Common Frame of References (CFR), the so-called European Contract Law is also a new challenge.I am convinced thattheelaboration of a new applicable law may be stipulatedbythe partiestotheir contractlaw,yet this will take a longperiod of time. The preparation of the legal basis of CFRrequires thoroughandextensiveconsultations.
The Decision on bank attachment(the Bank Attachment Order) will be a new, independent legal institution. The Commission hasmade a documenton this subject, but due to the delayof the submission of the proposal, the HungarianPresidency was not able to deal more deeplywiththedossier. The next triopresidencywill carry onthe work,and I wish success to the PolishPresidency inmoving forward with thesedossiers.
I wish you a lot of useful and fruitful discussions on European Company Law.
Thank you for your kind attention!
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