MEP welcomes child maintenance Treaty

In a move that will help people living in the EU to recover child maintenance if their ex-partner happens to move abroad, MEPs last week took the final steps towards allowing an international Treaty to come into force in the EU.

The Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance will not, however, apply in the UK or Denmark.

Welcoming the vote in the European Parliament, Mr López-Istúriz White, who was in charge of steering the latest amendments through Parliament, explained:

“In the EU 13% of couples include someone from a country outside the EU. Thousands of European citizens that do not have the right to child maintenance can now ask for that. This new law also creates a central European authority, which will gather all the claims from all the citizens around the European Union and ask governments of third countries about those particular claims.”

“I call on Denmark specifically and the United Kingdom to join the Convention as soon as possible so we can have an agreement for the whole of Europe,” he added.