A civil court judgment obtained in any EU member state may
be enforced in any other member state without having to issue
separate judgments.
The enforcement procedure is known as the Brussels regime.
It applies to all civil or commercial judgments except arbitral
awards and cases involving bankruptcy, insolvency, wills,
succession, matrimonial property rights, social security or the
legal status or capacity of individuals.
Before the judgment can be enforced, the courts of the
enforcing state must declare it to be enforceable. The process
for recognising judgments is different in each member
state.
The recognition process provides the debtor with an
opportunity to object, although the court can only look at the
enforceability of the judgment, not the merits of the original
claim. A court would not recognise a judgment if, for example,
it were contrary to public policy or incompatible with an
