Civil status and circulation of public documents in EU and worldwide: the need for a European common framework for third countries

While the EU fosters and protects the right of free movement of its citizens, it is necessarily concerned by the reception of third-country nationals. Migration issues are among the EU competences in the area of freedom, security and justice. In both scenarios – i.e. intra-EU movements and immigration from outside the EU – there is a need to ensure the continuity of personal and family status: this represents a condition of effectiveness, as concerns the enjoyment of rights. With specific reference to third country nationals, the implementation of the European migration rules requires the resolution of civil status issues for which there is no common approach so far. However, the simplifications introduced by the EU Regulation 2016/1191 do not work for documents from third countries. The EU rules coexist with the fragmented (yet, in some cases, more advanced) regime contained in international conventions. However, this does not mean that the EU cannot have uniform rules to deal with such documents (compare with foreign judgments and the ratification of the 2019 Hague Convention). Common rules for public documents on civil status would reinforce the coherence of the EU migration law. The need for a common legal framework is the focus of the present paper, which highlights the opportunity for the EU to act in synergy with the Hague Conference on Private International Law and the International Commission on Civil Status.