Brussels, 30/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - The European Day of Civil Justice was held on Friday 25 October and was celebrated in Luxembourg by European notaries (CNUE). Their conference, sponsored by the European Commission and the Council of Europe, was devoted to the new regulation on international successions, which will enter into force in 2015. French notary and president of the CNUE working group on this regulation, François Tremosa (who works in Toulouse, France), explained this new instrument, which is expected to help make life considerably easier for European citizens. (Interview by SP/transl.fl).
Agence Europe - The regulation on international successions which entered into force in August 2012 will apply to successions opened from 17 August 2017. Why this timeframe and what are the new rules going to change for European citizens?
François Tremosa (FT) - It is a complex regulation and this timescale should allow time to provide training for all practitioners, particularly notaries. It should also help member states to adapt their tax systems even though the regulation does not impose anything. According to Commission figures, there are 450,000 international successions in the EU every year, most often across two countries. Each country has its own practices and criteria and this frequently creates unclear situations. The number of international successions is increasing significantly and simplification was needed. With the new regulation, it is the criterion of the most recent regular residence of the deceased that will prevail, unless, whilst the interested party was alive, they indicated that they wished the law of their country of origin to apply. I must reiterate that this will only be possible for successions opened after August 2015. Without any clear instruction, , the first criteria will apply to all member states, with the exceptions of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom, which for the time being are not party to this regulation.
The United Kingdom had a problem with the rules on donations during the drafting of the regulation. Is the United Kingdom not participating in it because, in its opinion, this point was not satisfactorily resolved?
It should be said that whole chapters in this regulation were devised and specifically thought out for the United Kingdom! The country even attended all of the meetings but has still not yet decided whether to be party to the regulation. We will have to see whether it will do so later… The British, indeed, had a problem with the fact that their mechanism could be affected. Ultimately, the regulation does not deal with donations and practices in this connection differ from member state to member state. The United Kingdom does not accept that donations that have been freely consented to in the past can be subject to question and re-examined during successions - what has been donated is not taken into account. Whereas in France and Belgium, donations can be subject to question.
The regulation is accompanied by a European Certificate on Succession that is currently being prepared. What does it involve?
It is the document that illustrates the authority of the heir with regard to the succession, which he can show in all the different member states. This document will enable the heir in question to travel unhindered everywhere. Thus, an Italian heir will be able to claim the contents of a bank account in Spain, for example. It is a standardised form that demonstrates that all formalities have been completed and states, for example, that the law applicable to the succession, the status and rights of each heir, and the list of which assets and rights that should go to which heir. This ECS is still being discussed at a European level but we have high hopes that these discussions will be finished by the end of the year and that we will still be largely working in the given time frame.
On a more general level, what's your opinion of what is being done by Viviane Reding in the civil justice field? Following on from divorce and a recent regulation on matrimonial regimes, are still a number of areas that still need to be looked at?
The progress achieved in the civil justice arena is not exclusively down to Viviane Reding because we began work on this roadmap as far back as 2000 and initiatives had already been announced in this connection at the time. We are now, therefore, benefiting from all these different commitments made. As an expert, I don't have either a positive or negative opinion of the commissioner. What is certain, however, is that, after the initiative on the circulation of public documents, such as the civil-status records, which was also announced by the commissioner, we will have covered almost all the different areas of family law. By resolving very real problems affecting Europeans, we are also probably helping to strengthen the feeling of belonging to the EU.