The European Procedure on Reduced Value Claims

• Author: Alexandrina Zaharia, Adrian Zaharia
• Position: Danubius University of Galati, Law Faculty - Galati Court
• Pages: 393-398

393

The European Procedure on

Reduced Value Claims

Alexandrina

Z

a

h

a

r

ia1

Adrian

Z

a

h

a

r

ia2

1Danubius University of Galati, Law Faculty, alexandrinazaharia@univ-danubius.ro

2Galati Court

Abstract: Maintaining and developing the area of freedom, security and justice is a major objective of the

European Community, which guarantees the free movement of persons. As a result of litigations regarding

the applications with a reduced value arising among physical or legal persons, it was felt the need for a

community legislation that would guarantee identical conditions, both for creditors and debtors throughout

the entire European Union territory. The European procedure regarding the debts recovery of reduced

value facilitates the access to justice and it is characterized by simplifying and expediting the settling of the

transboundary litigations, reducing costs, the recognition and execution of the court order in a

M

e

mb

e

r

S

tate given in another Member State. This procedure is available to litigants as an alternative to the

procedures provided by the laws of Member States. The Regulation (EC)no. 861/2007 establishing a

European procedure regarding the appli cations with reduced value applies in civil and commercial matters in

the transboundary cases, regardless the nature of the court when the application value, without taking into

account the interest, expenditures and other costs, does not exceed 2000 Euro at the time of receiving the

application form by the competent court. This procedure does not apply to revenue, customs or

administrative matters or in regard to state responsibility for acts or omissions in exercising the public

authority, and other matters specifically referred to in the Regulation. A cause is transboundary in nature

when one of the parties has its habitual residence in a Member State, other than the one where the court

receives such application. The proper procedure of application resolution for the recovery of debts with

reduced value is governed by the rules of procedural law of the Member State in which the proceedings are

conducted, and the execution of court of law is made by state legislation in which it takes place. The

Regulation expressly provides that the court order in this matter can not be, in any form, the subject of

reexamination, in the State member in which its execution is requested. As regards the linguistic regime,

the application will be written in the language or in one of the procedure languages of the court; the costs

are incurred by the losing party in the application. But the court will not grant the party that won the

lawsuit the expenses that were not necessary or the ones that have a disproportionate value in relation to

the application.

Keywords: transboundary nature, scope, evidence, recognition,costs.

1. Prior considerations

In order to create a space of security, freedom and justice, as well as the good functioning of the internal market,

the Community adopted, among others, some measures that will eliminate the obstacles against the proper

progress of civil procedures on judiciary cooperation in civil matters, with trans-border incidence, in

recuperating the claims with reduced value. In this context, the European Council reunitedin Tampere on 15 and

16 October 1999 invited the Council and Commission to establish common procedural norms in order to

simplify and accelerate the solving of international disputes on reduced value claims in consumer’s law and

commercial field. On 20 December 2002 the Commission adopted the Green Paper concerning the creation of a

procedure on the European payment order and adoption of measures to simplify and accelerate the solving of

disputes concerning reduced value claims. The purpose of this procedure is to facilitate the access to justice in the

EU member states. This desideratum is based on the fact that at the moment there isn’t any Community

legislation, neither material nor procedural that can guarantee identical conditions for both creditors and debtors in

the EU. In other words, we cannot talk about a European civil procedure on the recovery of such claims.

The purpose of adopting the European procedure norms of this type is to simplify and accelerate the solving of