INTRODUCTION

Among the third-State cases, the cases related to Turkey are of paramount importance for European private international law by virtue of the substantial number of Turkish nationals resident in the Union. According to the numbers provided by the official statistical office of the European Union (Eurostat) in 2011, Turkish citizens constitute the second largest group of third-country nationals living in the Union, with approximately 2.1 million citizens. It seems that this number has not changed much in recent years. The practical significance of the Turkey-related cases is even bigger for the European Succession Regulation (hereinafter ‘the Regulation’), in which treaties between Member States and Turkey covering issues of succession enjoy priority of application as a consequence of the so-called ‘Achilles’ heel’ of the Regulation (Article 75). Turkey has such treaties with Germany (Turkish-German Consular Treaty of 1929 Treaty 19), Italy (Turkish-Italian Consular Treaty of 1929 Treaty 21) and Hungary (Turkish-Hungarian Consular Treaty of 1938 Treaty 24). Whereas the numbers of Turkish nationals residing in Italy and in Hungary 10 are not very high, roughly 1.5 million Turkish nationals are resident in Germany. This means that a significant number of the thirdcountry- related succession cases would fall outside the system provided by the Regulation. These treaties were signed almost a century ago and, hence, reflect the legal and political atmosphere of those times. In this sense, they are incompatible with the rules of the Regulation and thus vitiate the desired harmonization through it.

Their impact on Turkish practice, however, does not seem to be as considerable as in the European Union. In the first place, the potential number of cases they might be applicable to is not many. According to the statistics provided by Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), there were only around 75,000 German and 3,000 Italian residents in Turkey in the year 2016. The number of Hungarian residents was not even presented in the statistics, probably because of the fact that it is under 500. Furthermore, treaties seem to have been forgotten by the Turkish courts in many cases, unlike the courts of contracting Member States actually applying them.