In future, it will be easier to enforce cross-border claims up to EUR 2,000. Today the European Council of Ministers of Justice adopted the proposal for a Regulation creating a European Small Claims Procedure (the so-called Small Claims Regulation).
“Legal redress in the European Union must not be allowed to stop at Member States’ borders because of bureaucratic hurdles or disproportionate costs. For this reason, court enforcement of cross-border claims must be further improved. No matter whether we are concerned with slight damage to the bodywork of a motor vehicle, sustained in an accident in the EU, or with rescinding a flawed transaction entered into during a shopper’s holiday – throughout Europe people should be able, just like businesses, to enforce their rights under the law. The Small Claims Regulation makes a simplified procedure available in cases of cross-border disputes for bringing civil claims up to the value of EUR 2,000 in an easy, inexpensive and effective manner“, said Federal Minister Brigitte Zypries.
The Regulation creates a uniform European civil procedure applied before the courts of the Member States of the European Union – with the exception of Denmark. Hence it improves cross-border legal relations – but nothing more. This procedure does not apply to litigation in disputes in Germany. In relation to cross-border cases, too, the plaintiff will in future be able to choose whether he wants to use the new procedure under the Small Claims Regulation or have recourse to the tried and tested German civil procedure. Zypries stressed the fact that “in Brussels we have been successful in our support for retaining this right of choice”.
As a result of the various European provisions, it has already become much easier to obtain and enforce a judgment regarding an uncontested claim against a citizen of another EU state. The new Small Claims Regulation goes a step further than this. It also enables contested claims of up to the value of EUR 2,000 to be enforced in the usual adversarial civil proceedings. Enforcement of a judgment given in these proceedings is simple: here the complicated procedure that was necessary in the past for an order for enforcement has been done away with.
The procedure has been designed to be user-friendly: to institute the proceedings, the plaintiff has to fill in a standard form. Instructions on how to fill in the form facilitate recourse in practice. The parties do not have to be represented by a practising lawyer. This is designed to reduce the costs of proceedings. Furthermore, the Regulation stipulates that that no unnecessary costs are to be imposed on the unsuccessful party. This is supposed to ensure that, in all Member States, parties will not have to reckon with an inappropriate financial burden.
At some points the Small Claims Regulation deliberately leaves room for the application of respective national laws. This is particularly true of the system of appellate remedies, which means that judgment given in Germany pursuant to this Regulation can, on the usual basis, be contested in an appeal on fact and law if the requirements for this appellate remedy have first been fulfilled.
The new European procedure does not apply, inter alia, to disputes in the fields of labour law, the matrimonial property regime, the law of succession or the law governing maintenance.
The procedural provisions of the Regulation will come into effect on 1 January 2009.
