New EU rules to ease free movement for citizens by making it simpler to prove the authenticity of documents such as birth or marriage certificates in another EU member state were voted by Parliament on Thursday.
To avoid any need for translation, new multilingual EU forms are to be attached to the documents. The vote endorsed an informal deal previously struck by Parliament and Council negotiators, EP said in a press release.
"More than 14 million EU citizens live in a member state other than their home state. To marry, to declare the birth of a child or to prove a clean criminal record, they are forced to deal with tedious procedures. With today's vote, we have taken a first step towards reducing these bureaucratic hurdles, by abolishing the costly and burdensome 'apostille' requirement and introducing multilingual standard forms", said rapporteur Mady Delvaux (S&D, LU) during the plenary debate.
"Despite the opposition of a part of the Council, an important review clause refers to various documents, such as university diplomas or disability certificates, that could not be included in the scope of the rules at this stage. This text is the first step in a long process, the final aim of which is to have common public documents within the EU", she added.
The new rules would do away with administrative formalities such as the “legalization” or “apostille” certification of “public” documents such as those proving civil status, parenthood or nationality. MEPs and the Council had agreed to extend the rules’ scope to include documents proving the capacity to marry or to enter into a registered partnership. Documents certifying the absence of a criminal record would also be accepted in other EU member states without further legalization procedures.
Furthermore, the rules would also cover documents that citizens living in another member state must produce if they wish to vote and/or stand as candidate in European or municipal elections in the member state where they reside.