The EU Regulation on Public Documents n. 1191 came into force on 16th February 2019 and dramatically cuts red tape for EU citizens who need to provide public documents in another EU member state, abolishing the need for fixing with an Apostille, to prove the cross-border document or certificate is genuine, or even the need to provide a translation.
The public documents covered by the Regulation include birth, death, marriage, registered partnership or adoption certificates, and also residence certificates and proof of absence of a criminal record.
The Regulation introduces optional multilingual, standard forms that can be attached to the public documents to avoid translation requirements.
For more information here is a link to the text of the Regulation in English:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32016R1191&from=EN
