News

‘We've come a long way, and the ENRWA is now an effective tool for European cooperation’, Octavian Rogojanu

Dear Mr. Octavian ROGOJANU,

 

  1. This is the fourth year since you were elected President of the European Network of Registers of Wills Association (ENRWA) for a six-year term. You perform this work voluntarily as an honorary position, in addition, you are also a notary in Romania and in the board of the Bucharest chamber. How do you balance all these different roles and responsibilities?

 

I think it's a privilege at some point in one's life to choose to accept professional responsibilities that are meaningful even if it indeed involves spending time, energy and it is perform on a voluntary basis. I am grateful to my notary associate, who is helpful in taking responsibility in our demanding office during my travels, even if I give priority to videoconferencing as much as possible.

I am currently President of ENRWA, member of working group of the Council of notaries of the EU (CNUE) on companies’ law and assessing in the Bucharest Chamber of notaries on succession. I would like to thank the Chamber for providing financial and political support. They helped organising a Steering Committee meeting in Bucharest at the beginning of my mandate. My fellow notaries appreciate ENRWA's mission to facilitates communication between notaries in Europe and guarantees legal security for our clients.

 

  1. We must emphasize that the European Network of Registers of Wills Association (ENRWA) has been operating for 19 years since the register was established. Could you describe the journey since the introduction of ENRWA/RERT in April 2002, when the Conference of Presidents of the Notarial Chambers of the Member States of the European Union was held in Madrid, with Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Estonia, and Slovenia attending as candidate countries, and since the founding act was signed in 2005?

 

It all started in 2002 with a visionary proposal from the French and Belgium notaries. The increased mobility of citizens in Europe confronted notaries with cross border successions that were not always easy to resolve. The idea was to facilitate information on the existence of a last will in another European country, therefore reducing the risk of the will remaining unknown or being found belatedly. The following years, with the CNUE’s support, other notaries joined this initiative. We have today 21 European notaries members of ENRWA. We've come a long way, and the ENRWA is now an effective tool for European cooperation.

All this would not have been possible without the financial and political support of European institutions, and in particular the European Commission and the Council of the EU. The ENRWA has benefitted from operational and project-oriented grants from successive e-justice programme.

 

  1. What is the role of RERT in light of the the 'Basel Convention', that established a system for the registration of wills, on May 16, 1972 (Convention on the Establishment of a Scheme of Registration of Wills (ETS No. 077)), and the principles it sets forth? Slovenia has not yet ratified this convention; what does this mean for its integration into RERT?

 

The 'Basel Convention' of 1972 is indeed a founding text for our association, as it promotes the establishment of a scheme of registration of Wills and set forth principles that have been incorporated into the association's articles, such as the confidentiality of the existence of a will during the lifetime of the testator (article 8).

However, ratification of the Convention is not a prerequisite for becoming ENRWA member or interconnecting the register. In this case, the manager of the register will have to sign an agreement to accept ENRWA’s principles and become a reliable partner.

 

  1. Inheritance with an international element poses special challenges and obstacles for heirs, as procedural and conflict-of-law rules differ from country to country. How does RERT contribute to facilitating and simplifying inheritance at the European level?

 

You are right. As legal advisor to the heirs, notaries in Europe are faced with increasing number of cases of inheritance with foreign elements. Difficulties range from obtaining information to implementing the EU regulation. In this context, ENRWA proposes an efficient and secure tool to obtain information easily on the existence of last wills.

All European countries that possess a last will register can interconnect it via the ENRWA. This digitalised platform allows users of national registers, mainly notaries, to send and receive queries of other European register.

It is very easy for notaries: they make their interrogation through the interface of its national register. If a last will is found in a succession case, the notary will receive a couple of days later the address of the holding notary. And if a last will is not found, it will receive a negative answer, which will reassure him for the handling of the succession process.

Today there are 13 last will registers interconnected via our network. In 2023, more than 5000 queries were made on the platform and nearly 700 last wills were found. And since 2015, and the adoption of the EU Regulation 650/2012, we propose also to interconnect European Certificate of Succession (ECS): 4 members have already interconnected their registers and this number is increasing.

Throughout the years we have identified legal and technical obstacles preventing the further development of interconnection of last wills and ECS registers in Europe. In some cases, we have been able to provide middle-ground solutions, while in other cases, progresses still need to be made.

We hope that the Slovenian last will register will be interconnected as it would be a useful tool for the notariat. One of ENRWA administrator and Slovenian notariat, Sonja KRALJ, is confident of it. She has been a great help to make the RERT known amongst Slovenian notaries, and we had the privilege to be invited to their national conference in 2023 in Portoroz to present our association.

 

  1. How do you assess the awareness of RERT among notaries and other users, and the cooperation of RERT with European institutions, particularly the European Commission, which is preparing an evaluation of the implementation of the European Succession Regulation No. 650/2012 for 2025?

 

As I said before, we value all invitations to attend conferences and events organized by notariat in Europe to present the work of ENRWA and raise awareness of fellow notaries. We also communicate on social media to increase our visibility. We recently revamped our website that you can visit on www.arert.eu and we created a LinkedIn page to share news.

We attend meeting with European institutions as expert on register’s interconnection on last wills and ECS, to present recommendations based on our experience, and to improve European regulations. The European commission and the Council of the European Union have been supportive and agree on the relevance of the interconnection of registers of wills and ECSs for the effective application of Regulation 650/2012.

 

  1. In 2025, the ENRWA will celebrate its 20th anniversary, and anniversaries are always an opportunity not only to reflect on the past but also to set new future goals. Could you present some of the future goals to us?

 

I am pleased to represent ENRWA next year to celebrate 20 years of hard and effective work. The journey has been remarkable, and we are delighted that our work is now recognised by the profession and by European institutions.

We still can improve and on of our goals is to interconnect more last will registers and ECS. We have identified the obstacles that remain. We have also defined a communication plan to raise awareness amongst notaries about the network, with the objective of increasing the number of queries on the platform. And we will continue to enhance our partnership with all notariat, the CNUE and judicial networks. I believe that a thriving European Union requires for the notariat to work for legal security for all citizen and lead the example of cooperation across borders.