Starting with 16th February 2019 people from the European Union (EU) Member States will face simplified and reduced administrative requirements for presenting various public documents and copies thereof in other EU Member States, thus releasing people from an unnecessary administrative workload.
On 6th July 2016 the European Council adopted Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 on promoting the free movement of citizens by simplifying the requirements for presenting certain public documents in the European Union and amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/201, providing that public documents and certification copies thereof shall be released from legalization and apostille (document authenticity certification) formalities.
The release from legalization and apostille formalities shall apply to documents and certification copies thereof issued by any EU Member States’ public authorities and lodged with any other Member States’ public authorities, e.g. documents issued by court recorders or court officials, administrative documents, notarial deeds, official certifications on any private documents as well as diplomatic and consular documents.
The release shall apply to all public documents recognizing one or several facts as well as the fact of birth, the fact of death, the fact that a person is alive, given name and last name, marriage, ability to enter into marriage and marital status, divorce or annulment of marriage, parental status or adoption, domicile and/or place of residence, nationality, non-existence of previous convictions, candidacy or voting in the elections of the European Parliament or local government elections in any other Member State. Full list of public documents available in Article 2 of the said Regulation.
In regard to some of the said public documents, a person who is entitled to receive a specific public document shall have an option to ask the authority to issue a multilingual standard form too. The aim of the form is to ease translating of the public document. The multilingual form can be used in another Member State, and it must be submitted with the public document to which the form is attached. If a Member State allows presenting a certified copy instead of the original copy, all public authorities of the said Member State must accept a certified copy prepared in the Member State which issued the public document.
The Regulation can be accessed HERE. Additional information about the Regulation, multilingual standard forms, EU Member States’ notified information about implementation of the Regulation and public document to be issued in each EU Member State, sample repositorium can be accessed in the respective section of the E-justice portal.