EN
This paper deals with selected issues of the general part of private international law related to compulsory separation before divorce. As a case study for the examination of these issues, we used the case C-249/19 at the Court of Justice of the European Union (“Court of Justice“) concerning the interpretation of Rome III Regulation, which is yet to be decided. The conflict rules of this regulation led Romanian courts to apply Italian law in a certain divorce case with foreign element. The problem the court had to deal with originated in a rule of Italian law, which obliges the spouses to go through a period of separation authorized by a court as a prerequisite for divorce. Romanian law, however, is unfamiliar with such a separation. Within this context, we address classification, the public policy clause, adaptation and analogy. We further evaluate the opinion of the advocate general together with the judgment of the Court of Justice delivered in the analyzed case.