Abstract

Maintenance cases are disputes in which a foreign element is usually present. Freedom of movement of persons, which resulted in marriages between persons of different nationalities, was the reason for activation of the international legislator intended to introduce legal regulations protecting the weaker side of the maintenance obligations, that is primarily children.

At present, Regulation (EC) No 4/2009 of 18 December 2008 on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of judgments and cooperation in matters relating to maintenance obligations (OJ L 7 of 10 January 2009, page 1) and the Hague Convention of 23 November 2007 on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance (OJ L 192 of 22 July 2011, p. 51) should be recognized as the most important legal acts.

Bearing in mind the scope of the issue, for the purposes of this study the authors focused only on relations between EU Member States – Poland and Germany. The analysis carried out in the article has shown that even despite the absence of provisions permitting implementation of EU law into the national legal order, states do introduce EU regulations, which results in a coalition of international standards with national laws. Moreover, the statistics presented by two Polish courts – the Regional Court in Krakow and the Regional Court in Warsaw reveal the pathologies relating to the impossibility of enforcing a maintenance claim due to the lack of address of the obliged person or their evading legal employment thus extending the pathological illegal work behaviours and being maintained by the social system in their country of residence.