INTRODUCTION

Europeanisation in family law, as a background metaconcept, has been understood and explored in many ways. Typically, it is perceived as a process of convergence driven by EU harmonisation of certain family law matters or a form of compliance with EU law obligations set out by the CJEU (the so-called ‘judicial Europeanisation’). What the first explains are the dynamics and outcomes of European law-making, while the second focuses on the scope of legal pressures coming from Luxembourg and subsequent adjustments on the national level. The book has already discussed cross-border child relocation in reference to both understandings, but neither can reveal much about the actual domestic effects of EU law on cross-border child relocation law at the present time. This is so because there is no EU legislation and no CJEU judgment on child relocation, and hence the nature and scope of any adaptational pressures remain unclear. This state of legal uncertainty creates simultaneously an opportunity to draw from EU law and a chance to ‘escape’ any perceived legal pressures. The previous chapter demonstrates, at the same time, that the influence of EU law might have a much more complex nature than its doctrinal obligations. In particular, the normatively inflicted methodology of EU law and its contextual constructions might provide relevant reference points for cases where EU mobility can constitute a legally relevant context.