Consumer Bankruptcy Regimes In Europe

Abstract

Consumer over-indebtedness has been a problem in Europe especially since the 2008 financial crisis. Legal procedures addressing consumer insolvency were scarce and sporadic prior to 2008, however, legislation have accelerated in most Member States of the European Union in the past fifteen years. In lack of any harmonization in the area of consumer bankruptcy in the EU, Member States, while learning from each other in some instances, established their own procedures and regulatory frameworks. The paper attempts to map the various approaches in addressing consumer over-indebtedness looking for common cores to serve as a base for a future legislation in an EU level. The research follows a comparative method mostly relying on the analysis of the relevant norms in the Member States of the EU also wandering to the territory of the sociology of law. The paper concludes the consumer bankruptcy regimes in Europe can be categorized easily and show similarities mostly in the identification of the vulnerable groups and in the legal consequences of the procedures. This finding proves there is ground for the European Commission to propose legislation, preferably in the form of a directive of the Council and of the European Parliament, to ensure a harmonized approach in the field of consumer bankruptcy procedures.