Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

This chapter provides family law experts worldwide with a glimpse into and an update on the latest changes in European family law, specifically to conflict of law rules for resolving European Union (EU) cross-border family law cases and most notably those regarding responsibility for children, marital dissolution and distribution of assets after death. Examined are EU-level legal developments affecting cross-border family relationships within the 27 nations of the European Union that have been introduced primarily through significant new EU legislation and by recent case decisions by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The changes’ impacts at the national-law level on substantive and procedural family law and on national and personal (party) autonomy are illustrated using reports on the experiences across the EU. The experience of my own Member State, Sweden, is described as an example of how EU-level, increasingly harmonised family law (‘international private law’ primarily) is being negotiated and implemented both between and within EU Member States. This research aims to overview ongoing (and indeed ever-present) tensions between autonomy and uniformity interests within the EU, contributing to the significant existing literature on the present state of and future possibilities for ‘European family law’ while also introducing non-EU scholars to this growing, rather complex legal area. As the chapter’s final sections describe, a steadily-increasing Europeanisation of family law is observed, co-existing with the tensions, which is reducing legal difficulties for individuals and state actors in Sweden and throughout the EU within a broader context of ongoing legal, economic and cultural globalisation. Family law, no longer taking a back seat to other EU legal areas, is today playing a remarkably prominent role.