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Other judicial cross-border procedures
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The European Small Claims Procedure is part of a list of European initiatives aimed at allowing judicial cooperation among Member State Authorities, harmonizing and simplifying the notification and communication of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters at cross-border level, the jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters. Among the various cross-border legal instruments on judicial cooperation in civil matters, available at European level, two of them are to be mentioned :
a) the European Order for Payment Procedure (Regulation (EC) No 1896/2006) which applies when you are claiming money from someone who does not deny that they owe you the sum in question(“uncontested pecuniary claim”). The procedure is based on standard forms that you must fill in.
b) the European Enforcement Order (Regulation (EC) No 805/2004) which is a certificate accompanying a national judgment, a court settlement or an authentic instrument, allowing it to be enforced in another Member State. It also applies to claims against someone who does not contest the claim, where a national judge has already declared that you owed the money in question. To apply for an enforcement order you would normally ask the court which passed judgment on the merits of your case, and you must comply with the national requirements in that Member State. For this procedure, the claim will be considered uncontested, if the defendant has agreed with your claim either in court, in a court-approved settlement or in an authentic act, or if he never objected to it, or if, having initially objected, he then failed to appear in court (tacit admission).
Information on the procedures is available in all the EU languages on the website of the European Judicial Atlas in Civil Matters: http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/judicialatlascivil/html/index_en.htm