The economic consequences of judgments delivered when matrimonial ties are loosened or dissolved, during the lifetime of the spouses, or on the death of a spouse, are clearly of major interest in the creation of a European Judicial Area.
Since the Single European Act (1986) and the realisation of the concept of a European Community without frontiers, the idea of a "European judicial area" has developed. The Council of Europe had already adopted a number of initiatives to facilitate cooperation between European States, but it was Title VI of the Maastricht Treaty which in 1993 included judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters as matters of common interest for Member States of the European Union. The Amsterdam Treaty links judicial cooperation in civil matters to free movement of persons under the EC Treaty (new Article 65), the main objective of this European legal area being to simplify the legal environment which exists in the European Union.
