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Divorce between Bulgarian National and Citizen of EU

The divorce matter is settled in the Bulgarian Family Code, which is the relevant Bulgarian law arranging the marriage relations, personal child-parent contacts, custody, adoption, family properties.

According to Article 49 of the Family Code each of the spouses may request divorce when the marriage is deeply and irrevocable broken down.

The matrimonial matters shall be settled in the Bulgarian courts if one of the spouses is a Bulgarian national person or has habitually residence in the Republic of Bulgaria.

For EU citizens the relevant law is the Council Regulation (EU) 2019/1111 of 25 June 2019 on jurisdiction, the recognition and enforcement of decisions in matrimonial matters and the matters of parental responsibility, and on international child abduction , which establishes uniform jurisdiction rules for divorce, legal separation and marriage annulment as well as for disputes about parental responsibility with an international element. According to Art. 3 from the Regulation, the jurisdiction shall lie with the courts of the Member State in whose territory: the spouses are habitually resident; or the spouses were last habitually resident, insofar as one of them still resides there; or the respondent is habitually resident, or in the event of a joint application, either of the spouses is habitually resident; or the applicant is habitually resident if he or she resided there for at least a year immediately before the application was made; or the applicant is habitually resident if he or she resided there for at least six months immediately before the application was made and is a national of the Member State in question; or of the nationality of both spouses.

Without prejudice to Article 3, a court of a Member State that has given a decision granting a legal separation shall also have jurisdiction to convert that legal separation to a divorce, if the law of that Member State so provides (Art. 5 from the Regulation).

Regarding the parental responsibility, please see section 2 from the Regulation.

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This article was created by Valova&Angelova law firm.