Earlier this month incoming EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding said she would present a demand for "enhanced co-operation" in this area within three months of taking office. "Ten nations have asked for it. They are right and I will do it," she told the European Parliament on January 12. The 10 want to develop a law which settles the question of which law should be applied when citizens of two different EU member states who are married want a divorce. But since Reding made he announcement, no new EU member states have added their support to the plan.
German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said she was "open" to the project at a meeting on Friday of EU justice ministers in Toeldo in central Spain but she needed to wait and see the proposition first. "The European Parliament will only back this project if a strong majority backs it and we will do the same," she said.
Her Belgian counterpart Stefaan de Clerck echoed her views. "As a matter of principle we are in favour of it, but much will depend on the content of this proposition," he said. But Spanish Justice Minister Francisco Caamano, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said the "enhanced co-operation" concept should be used sparingly. French secretary of state for justice, Jean-Marie Bockel, said the goal though was not to divide the bloc but to encourage other nations to join the effort to create a common law on the issue. Some 350,000 marriages between mixed-nationality couples are celebrated each year in the 27-nation EU and while around 170,000 divorces are announced.