“Mediation in family cases across the European Union. Is a new harmonized approach to Europe’s policy for solving family conflicts needed?”, Nr.S-PD-22-62

Project No. S-PD-22-62              
Project title: „Mediation in family cases across the European Union. Is a new harmonized approach to Europe’s policy for solving family conflicts needed?”
Project duration: from 2022-11-03 to 2024-10-31
Postdoctoral supervisor: prof. dr. Agnė Tvaronavičienė

Postdoctoral trainee: Yuliya Branimirova Radanova

Summary: The Project offers a single EU methodology and standards for national and cross-border family disputes mediation and provides clear guidelines for child inclusion in this process. The need for it is rooted in the dispersed national provisions across the different Member States (MS), their application and the lack of EU regulation. The existing EU Mediation Directive broadly covers civil and commercial cases and merely provides for national enforcement of mediated settlement agreements, not regulating cross-border enforcement. Such disputes are increasing as indicated by the rise in EU divorce rates, the growing mobility of spouses and the spread of cross-cultural families. All of the above leads to a growth in the number of family disputes caught between various jurisdictions and applicable laws and often lead to damaging impact on the interest of the children. To achieve its objectives, the Project will conduct a review of the EU legislation and the family mediation practices in several MS and will study the scientific literature in the field. Interviews and a focus group will be organized on the challenges of the existing framework along with around table to test the results thus obtained. The available academic research has not yet encompassed the need for amending the existing EU legislation on mediation, though the need for proactive measures in pursuing mediation applicability has been made apparent by the spread of mandatory family mediation in the Union and the European Parliament 2018 recognition that the existing Directive has not reached its goals. This proposal is novel in its goals to set unified standards for the practice of EU family mediation, children involvement in it and the unified requirements for EU family mediators. Presentations, publications and cooperation with different countries’ experts will start the discussion on the need to review the EU policy on family justice and the necessity to unify the family mediation systems of the MS.