On 27 of July, the EU Official Journal will publish the new rules that will bring legal certainty and will make it easier for European citizens to handle the legal side of an international will or succession. The Member States now have three years to align their national laws so that the new EU rules become effective.

New European Union rules on cross-border successions proposed by the European Commission, and formally adopted by EU Member States in June 2012 and that will enter into force from the 27 of July, will make it easier for European citizens to handle the legal side of an international will or succession. According to the European Commission, these new rules will bring legal certainty to the estimated 450,000 European families dealing with an international succession each year. With over 12.3 million EU citizens resident in another EU country, the rules are likely to be of interest to many more. In 2010, the Commission launched a new web to facilitate access to multilingual information on succession law.

The new law makes considerably simpler to settle international successions by providing a single criterion for determining both the jurisdiction and the law applicable in cross-border cases: the deceased's habitual place of residence. It also permits citizens to plan their succession in advance in full legal certainty. On this way, the law also provides for a European Certificate of Succession, which will allow people to prove that they are heirs or administrators of a succession without further formalities throughout the EU.

On the other hand, people living abroad will, however, be able to opt to have the law of their country of nationality apply to the entirety of their succession. So a German pensioner living in Portugal could for example choose to apply German law when planning his or her succession. On 14 October 2009, the Commission proposed a regulation to simplify the settlement of international successions that will enter into force on 27 of July.