Did the EU recently adopt a law on cross-border parenting for member countries that would allow the separating of children from their families to be legally sent outside of the country and as such legalize a kind of child trafficking? No, that's not true: The goal of the European Commission's proposal, from December 7, 2022 for a Council regulation on cross-border recognition of parenthood between EU Member States, is to ensure that children's and parent's rights are recognized across all members of the EU.
The claim appeared in a Bulgarian video (no longer available) on TikTok, published by @rositsageorgieva79 on June 2, 2023.
The Bulgarian text overlay reads:
They legalize everything that is abnormal, anti-human, and perverted!
Recently the European Parliament adopted a law on cross-border parenting. This allows after the children were taken, to be sent abroad, where they will disappear. Legalized child trafficking!
This is what the post looked like on TikTok while it was still available:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Jun 9 17:17:19 2023 UTC)
An extensive search reveals that the false claim in the TikTok video, which is also circulating in some Bulgarian FB groups, was copied and shared from a FB post by Bulgarian politician Stella Bankova, who is known for her far-left pro-Russian views in the past.
The European Commission's proposal came up after cases such as the 'Baby Sara' case, in which the Bulgarian authorities refused to recognize the parental rights of a same-sex couple because gay marriages are not legally allowed in Bulgaria. Consequently, their child, who was born in Spain, was denied a birth certificate in Bulgaria. As a result, that led to a number of legal and administrative obstacles for both parents and the child.
Cases like this raised the question of the need for EU regulations and decisions to help and facilitate the recognition of parental rights for families across all member states. Such measures would ensure that children of the families in similar situations have equal rights in all EU countries and their rights will be recognized without any special procedure.
Although the proposal was made in order to protect and guarantee the rights of children and parents in such cross-border parenting situations, the proposal is not approved yet, since some of the EU members such as Poland and Hungary are openly against it.
