The Europeanization of private international law, a major breakthrough in the past two decades, has led to an unprecedented uniformization of international jurisdiction and conflict of laws rules. However, the European Union law making process has come up against significant difficulties questioning the rationality of its development. On the one hand, the uniformization’s legal basis has come under well-founded criticism. On the other hand, the legal technique, although never disavowed, has quickly failed to reach the required consensus among all member states, adding a geographical fragmentation of the European judicial area, shifting according to the regulation taken into account, to the characteristic material fragmentation of uniformization. Analyzing European private international law in family matters in view of the methodological principle of coherence, which governs the creation of law, allows for the identification of the sources of the aforementioned difficulties and the proposal of adjustments in compliance with the legal basis and the aim pursued. Firstly, a comparison with the evolution of the personal status has brought out the new approach of free movement of people, through the enforcement of “free movement” of decisions. Based on the loosening of the ties between individuals and the state, the pursuit of this freedom has led to a modification of the competences conferred upon the European Union. That alteration has allowed uniformization of private international rules, with no regard whatsoever for the uselessness of the latter to achieve its goal. Secondly, the methodological analysis has revealed that this approach reflects the European legislator’s erroneous vision of a uniform European judicial area. Nonetheless, such an idea rests on the insubstantial theoretical foundation of a principle of mutual recognition based on a questionable vision of an absolute mutual trust between member states. Therefore, it has aroused strong reactions from member states willing to protect their own national views, challenging that trust and the precedence of Union law which ensures it. Studying primary law leads to lay aside these representations of a uniform judicial area and of a hierarchical organization between the European Union and the national legal orders resulting from the objective of free movement of people. Regarding to the cooperation in civil matters and especially in family matters, the European Treaties promote, on the contrary, a fundamentally pluralist vision, respectful of the diversity of the national legal orders of the member states and seeking to ease access to justice for the parties. From that point of view, a renewed reflection on the elaboration of European private international law in family matters, from a much less integrationist perspective, is inevitable.