Free Movement of Public Documents in the European Union

Important legal as well as formal facts are certified in the form of public documents. The movement of public documents is regulated by international customary law, international treaties, national legislation and partially also by European law. In December 2010 the European Commission presented Green Paper covering ideas how to simplify the movement of public documents and recognition of civil status records. Reactions to the Green Paper were full of contradictions. Although all participants of the debate appreciated the idea of simplification of the movement of public documents in general, their views regarding certain proposals of the Commission varied. Ideas proposing the abolishing of formal legalization (including apostille), introduction of European civil status certificate and automatic recognition of civil status records were refused more often than accepted. On the other hand, the introduction of optional standard forms for widely used public documents (that could limit the translations of documents) was generally approved.