A Eurobarometer Survey on Civil Law, ordered by the Director General for Justice of the European Commission was published on October 25^th.

Among other things, it was found that 56% of Europeans believe that access to civil justice in another Member State is difficult and 84% consider that it is important for the EU to take additional measures to simplify enforcement of court orders between Member States.

Although the percentage of Europeans who were involved in civil or commercial proceedings with another person or corporation from another Member State may seem low (2%), it is actually very high in the number of persons involved: around 10 million (2% of 500 million).

It disconcerning to see that the “knowledge of the three cross-border European proceedings is relatively low: knowledge of cross-border legal assistance (12%) is more frequent that the collection procedure for small claims (8%) or the European  payment injunction (6%). Personal experience with these proceedings is marginal.”

Access to the complete document: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_351_fr.pdf