INTRODUCTION

The Treaty of Amsterdam, which gave the EU competence in private international law, entered into force in 1999. Before that many States had for more than a century satisfied their needs in this area by entering into multilateral or bilateral treaties with other States.

When the EU very diligently started to exercise its new competence, the question of the destiny of earlier treaties and conventions arose. Such treaties may have considerable regional or bilateral importance for the State parties. Would the EU tolerate the divergence that follows from the continued application of such treaties? And if so, in what way do the treaties affect the unity that was purported by concluding the EU instrument in question?

In the next section, the treaties which Finland and Sweden have concluded within the sphere of the European Succession Regulation (SR) are examined. After an enumeration and a short description of these treaties, the focus is on the Nordic Inheritance Convention (NIC) (Treaty 14), which from the point of view of the theme of this book is by far the most important and most interesting. The historical background of the NIC is outlined first, in order to elucidate its importance for the Nordic States. There after the contents of the NIC are described in order to answer two questions: (1) In what way does the NIC affect the application of the Succession Regulation in Finland and Sweden; and (2) How does the Regulation affect the application of the NIC and the fulfilment of the needs and interests that are behind the conclusion of it?

TREATIES AND CONVENTIONS TAKING PRECEDENCE OVER THE EUROPEAN SUCCESSION REGULATION

Finland is a party to three and Sweden to two treaties within the scope of the European Succession Regulation. Both States have ratified the Hague Convention of 1961 on the Conflicts of Laws Relating to the Form of Testamentary Dispositions. They ratified it without any reservations and, in accordance with Article 75(1) SR, apply it instead of the Regulation. This means that Finland and Sweden are a little bit more liberal as regards the acceptable form of a will than the Member States that apply Article 27 SR. The content of the Hague Convention of 1961 is so well known that it is unnecessary to describe it here.