Recognition and Enforcement: Maintenance Regulation
The great novelty of the Maintenance Regulation with regard to the recognition and enforcement of maintenance decisions is the abolishment of the “exequatur”. However, a condition considered necessary for this far-reaching step was the unification of the applicable law rules regarding maintenance obligations. That is why, once it became clear that not all European Union Member States wanted to be bound by common applicable law rules, two different sets of rules for the recognition and enforcement were included in the Maintenance Regulation:
- rules for the recognition and enforcement of decisions given in Member States which are bound by the applicable law rules of the 2007 Hague Protocol (Section 1 of Chapter IV of the Regulation)
- rules for the recognition and enforcement of decisions given in Member States which are not bound be the Protocol (Section 2 of Chapter IV of the Regulation)