Towards Universal Parenthood in the EU (UniPAR)

The intersection between domestic laws and EU law for children moving across borders within the EU is extremely complex and increasingly common. Judges apply EU instruments to matters such as parental responsibility, maintenance or succession but these instruments do not cover whether a parental bond exists (in law). This is left to domestic law (Private International Law – PIL included). This situation may create obstacles to the exercise of free movement rights of children and their families and infringe/undermine human rights. It was recently acknowledged that an action to support the recognition of parenthood between Member States was necessary: in fact, the European Commission recently presented the Parenthood Proposal COM(2022)695. However, until the new regulation is adopted, the effective and coherent application of the EU acquis is at times dependent on the operation of domestic law including PIL. The UniPAR project aims at improving the effective and coherent application of the EU Acquis by

1. identifying parenthood issues arising in connection to existing EU secondary law, also analyzing the possible impact of the Parenthood Regulation at the EU level;
2. analysing how parenthood is dealt with in the (PIL) domestic law in six jurisdictions, also on the basis of sample cases;
3. discussing the issues with stakeholders, through a dedicated international workshop in Brussels and six national seminars;
4. developing Conclusions and Recommendations. The Final Conclusions and Recommendations will be presented at an International Final Conference and published in an Open Access book. UniPAR also includes a robust dissemination strategy.

The UniPAR Consortium includes researchers from Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Italy, Poland and Spain that bring in expertise in the area of parentage, domestic and EU Private international law, EU law and Human Rights.

Target group: Judges, Lawyers, Notaries, Civil Servants, Law and Policy Makers, Academics, Civil Society.

UniPAR is funded by Justice Programme 2023. 

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.