Find a Bailiff II – A step further towards the identification of bailiffs / enforcement authorities in Europe

Debrief of the closing conference of the Find a Bailiff II project led by the European Chamber of Bailiffs.

Launched on January 01^st 2017 for a two-year period, the Find a Bailiff II project (FAB II) organised its closing conference on November 15^th in Brussels. The project, co-financed by the European Union and led by the European Chamber of Bailiffs, the Italian ministry of justice and the Bulgarian association “Judgment Enforcement Development Initiative”, aims at accompany citizens and legal practitioners’ in their debt recovery procedures.

During the closing conference, the President of the CEHJ, Patrick Sannino, underscored that “the FAB Directory, developed with the help of EU funding, allows identifying the enforcement authority competent to handle your request, being it a private bailiff or a bailiff within a court. In addition, the website www.eubailiff.eu provides relevant information on the missions of enforcement authorities and on the existing civil enforcement procedures in several Member States.”    

To help the Member States, an open source software, the “National generic database”, has been developed allowing Member States to easily obtain their national electronic directory of bailiffs / enforcement authorities.       

In addition to the consolidation of the FAB directory, the data of bailiffs can now also be found in the European court database (formerly European judicial atlas). Why? “It seemed essential to mutualise efforts and provide information on the bailiffs and enforcement authorities also in this important directory for the European legal practitioners.” said Patrick Sannino.    

Lastly, Alain Pilette, Deputy Director Justice, DG JAI Justice and Home Affairs at the Council of the European Union, and Cristian Nicolau, Head of Unit E-Justice, IT and document management at the European Commission, intervened at the conference to remind that working together is essential for the development of e-Justice in Europe. In particular, Alain Pilette hailed the excellent collaboration between the CEHJ and the European Commission, noting that bailiffs are an excellent example of efficiency and effective cooperation.