by Mathias Maurer, AT
One of the tasks of ICANEPO is to go and see how other European Member States apply the European Payment Order nationally. Although EPO is based on a European Regulation and is thus to be applied uniformly in all Member States, the EPO Regulation leaves enough explicit and implicit space for national characteristics of the procedure. The ICANEPO project will base its development on the requirements of the EPO Regulation, but it still needs to take national characteristics into account to provide appropriate interfaces.
In Sweden, it is not the regular courts, which are competent for the European Payment order but the “Kronofogden” – the Enforcement Authority. Additionally, Sweden has concentrated the competence for EPO centrally at the Enforcement Authority’s branch in Luleå – far up in the north of Sweden.
The Enforcement Authority in Luleå invited the ICANEPO project for a study visit on 29/08/2023 and very warmly welcomed the participants to its office. After the presentation of the project, its needs and objectives, the Swedish colleagues took the ICANEPO participants on a deep dive into the application of the European Payment Order in the Swedish judiciary.
The statistics for the EPO in Sweden show, that there is a very low number of cases each year. As a result and due to efficiency reasons, there is no support of an electronic case management system in place for EPO. However, the Swedish colleagues have set up a sophisticated set of Excel files to manage the cases. Furthermore, it was worth noting that cases are not distributed and assigned on a case-basis as it is in other countries. Instead, the team meets weekly and distributes the cases on a task-basis. As a result, the different steps within a case are handled by different persons.
After the first study visit to Vienna, AT, this second study visit to Sweden surfaced some new elements in the handling of EPO proceedings. For the ICANEPO project this needs to be taken into consideration when designing the task management aspects.
Besides the new insights the ICANEPO participants gained during the study visit, the warm welcome and charming hosts of the Swedish Enforcement Authority will be remembered.
Photo by Laszlo Wallner on Pixabay