Rebooting the EU Mediation Directive
Ten years after the original study “Rebooting The Mediation Directive: Assessing the Limited Impact of its Implementation and Proposing Measures to Increase the Number of Mediations in the EU”, professionals from around the EU, and the UK, are asked again to assess the status of mediation in their countries and to suggest measures capable of increasing mediation use.
BACKGROUND
In 2013, the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs requested a comparative study on the implementation of Directive 2008/52/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008 on Certain Aspects of Mediation in Civil and Commercial Matters (the 2008 Mediation Directive). Professor Giuseppe De Palo led the team whose study proposal was selected, developed and administered as part of the study an online questionnaire completed by EU mediation experts to assess the effectiveness of the national mediation policy instruments and then analyzed the results for a report. The completed report, entitled “‘Rebooting’ The Mediation Directive: Assessing the Limited Impact of its Implementation and Proposing Measures to Increase the Number of Mediations in the EU”, was published in 2014.
This new study, completed under the auspices of the Foundation, seeks to assess the current situation in the EU now that ten years have passed. The Foundation’s President, Professor De Palo, will serve as the general editor of the study. To facilitate comparison of the new study’s results with those of the original one, the new study’s methodology, described below, is largely the same as the methodology used for the original study.
METHODOLOGY
Having in mind that the purpose of this new study is to evaluate the progress achieved in the EU in the field of mediation within the 10 years since the original study, the research team first aimed to study and compile analyses of the current mediation legislation in each Member State. To ensure that a wide array of approaches to the implementation of mediation would be covered, the team decided to include in-depth analyses of all 27 Member States, and the United Kingdom as a former EU Member State that was represented in the original study, to present valuable experiences in developing mediation.
The research team elected to analyze the following aspects of each Member States’ legislation, all of which were also analyzed for the original version of the study:
- the degree of regulation,
- subject matters that may be mediated,
- the degree of confidentiality,
- the voluntary or mandatory nature of mediation or mediation information meetings,
- cost incentives and sanctions,
- the existence of court referrals to mediation,
- the enforceability of the mediation settlement agreement,
- training and accreditation of mediators,
- the existence or non-existence of the lawyers’ duty to inform clients about mediation,
- the use of legal assistance in mediation, and
- statistics regarding mediation use.
The research team also added a few areas of analysis not covered in the original study, aiming to reveal not only existing legislation but also well-formed practices and the effectiveness of adopted measures in each country.
Information addressing these areas of analysis, as for the earlier version of the study, was taken primarily from various books, scientific articles, and websites that provide such information. The analyses were later reviewed and confirmed by at least two experts per country.
In addition to compiling information from published sources, the team also created, as was done for the original study, a questionnaire to obtain feedback from EU mediation experts about the areas analyzed. The questionnaire was designed to seek information about the current mediation market and perspectives on current mediation legislation in each Member State, as well as experts’ opinions regarding possible legislative solutions and non-legislative proposals.
The questionnaire is designed to be distributed in multiple languages on an easily accessible online survey platform, with availability from early March 2024 to 31 July 2024. Please find the link to the questionnaire HERE.
Once the questionnaire’s availability ends, the team will analyze the results and, as with the questionnaire from the original study, write a report. Part of the team’s work will be to compare the data obtained in 2024 with the data obtained in the original study. The results of the study will be published by the end of November 2024 in a report that will be presented to relevant international organizations and governments. The report will also be available in open access on this page.
As with the previous study, the goal of the survey questionnaire is to create a tool that can serve as a sustainable platform for obtaining data related to mediation legislation in EU Member States, and that can be used to assess the impact of legislative and non-legislative measures used to promote mediation use.
Editor-in-Chief
Prof. Giuseppe De Palo, International Professor of ADR Law & Practice, Mitchell Hamline School of Law (USA)
Central Editorial Team
Prof. Dr. Agnė Tvaronavičienė, Head of Mediation and Sustainable Conflict Resolution Laboratory, Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania)
Prof. Dr. Bryan Clark, Deputy Head (Academic Affairs), Newcastle Law School (UK)
Prof. Mary Trevor, Emerita Professor of Law, Mitchell Hamline School of Law (USA)
Indrė Korsakovienė, Lecturer, Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania)
Federica Simonelli, Lecturer, University of Trento (Italy)
Study Editors (per country)
| Austria | Sascha Ferz |
| Belgium | Dr. Evelien de Kezel |
| Bulgaria | Georgi Radanov, Nikola Atanassov |
| Croatia | Srdan Simac |
| Cyprus | Dr. Anna Plevri, Nicolas Antartis |
| Czech Republic | Dana Potočková |
| Denmark | Mikkel Gudsøe |
| Estonia | |
| Finland | Anna-Maria Svinhufvud |
| France | Laurence Villeneuve, Chimène Bocquet |
| Germany | Prof. Dr. Cristina Lenz |
| Greece | Vassiliki Koumpli |
| Hungary | Dr. Manuela Grosu |
| Ireland | Anna Doyle |
| Italy | Federica Simonelli, Francesca Valastro |
| Latvia | Dana Rone |
| Lithuania | Dr. Agnė Tvaronavičienė, Indrė Korsakovienė |
| Luxembourg | Suzanne Karsai |
| Malta | Julian Sant Fournier |
| Netherlands | drs. mdr. Linda Reijerkerk |
| Poland | Agnieszka Gora |
| Portugal | Thomas Gaultier |
| Romania | Ruxandra Visoiu |
| Slovakia | Beata Swanova |
| Slovenia | |
| Spain | Prof. Dr. Helena S. Muñoz, Cristina U. Sotos |
| Sweden | Gert Nilsson Eldrimner |
| UK | Prof. Dr. Bryan Clark |
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