The European Chamber of Judicial Officers (CEHJ), the Bulgarian Judgment Enforcement Development Initiative (JEDI) and the Italian Ministry of Justice, organised the first regional conference of the European project “Find a Bailiff II“, on Monday October 30th in Sofia.
As a reminder, one of the main objectives of the FAB II project is to expand the existing European directory and, ideally, at the end cover all the Member States. In total three regional conferences will be held to raise awareness of the national bodies representing the bailiffs/executing agencies on the importance of joining the directory. Once consolidated, the directory will be integrated into the European e-Justice portal.
The Commission opened the conference in Sofia by highlighting the priorities of cross-border e-Justice cooperation and the importance of electronic directories in this regard. Feedback from different users of the first version of the directory was afterwards presented followed by a presentation of the usefulness of European directories of legal practitioners. In cross-border European justice, being able to find the right person to contact and to be sure that the person has the mandate to carry out the requested action is crucial. Digital directories are an essential tool in this regard.
The second part of the conference was dedicated to the Regulation on the European Account Preservation Order (Regulation (EU) No 655/2014), in particular the challenges and solutions in the context of the implementation of the Regulation by the Member States. Testimonials from France, Italy and Bulgaria were made. In the French case, the digital access to the French bank account register was highlighted as a mean to easily obtain information on a debtors account. Bulgaria described the differences which are possible in the national account preservation order procedure and the European, whereas Italy highlighted the importance of the role of bailiffs in the procedure. Finally, the opportunity to use dematerialised tools for the procedure was also discussed since the efficiency of the procedure depends on fast and reliable communication channels. This part is currently being examined in another European project, “Me-CODEX”.
The conference brought together representatives of several member states. The second conference is scheduled for February in Rome. See you!
