It looks like the Angel of Death has not passed over the collective intelligence of the EU Commission's Justice and Consumers DG or the ECAS, the NGO to which the Commission's advisory function has been contracted out. Marvellous introduction to the freedom to provide legal services within the EU, one is tempted to say.

Reference the treatment meted out to an English Solicitor by an NGO employee posturing as a civil servant who has evidently not read the second chapter of the TFEU on Citizen's rights and non-discrimination. even less the wording of the actual Regulation 650/2013 itself, which they misquote and misconstrue. The childishly political attempt to get individuals to put pressure on 10 Downing Street to "Opt In", when there are perfectly licit reasons for the UK to abstain, along with Denmark and Ireland is silly and not within the Commission's or ECAS' powers, even if delegated.

I have rarely seen a less legally justified comment by a paid quasi "civil servant" in over thirty years experience. The Commission and its deleguees are not meant to be politically biased and to misslead individual EU citizens for whom it is responsible and cause them financial loss. Neither therefore is the ECAS which is operating as an NGO, quite how, under the Commision's remit to give legal counsel on EU issues for free.

The Regulation incidentally is already "in force", in order to enable people to prepare, contrary to the statement by the "learned" NGOid concerned but it only applies to deceases after 17th August, 2015. The empyrical conclusion may need to be that this was written by an unsupervised intern....

The issues are set out at this link which Daniel Harris has approved my publishing, out of a private Linked-In Group of legal professionals. Hence the respect of the formatting in order to warn people that the EU Commission is not giving the correct advice and effectively missleading not only individuals who ask for assistance but also their notaries and lawyers.

I draw the readers attention to the comment made by an Italian colleague on article 34 of the Regulation, and to article 22 which generally allows any national whether from thr EU or not (the term State, as opposed to Member State, is used) to opt for the law of the State from which they draw their nationality. There is no specific exclusion of Opt out State's nationals from this general objectively determined right.

In other words, the NGOid is in a position to suffer a "renvoi à sa copie".  There has as yet been no retraction by their organisation of the false premises that it has been liberally sowing in Citizens' minds, and incidentally in those of the  legal professionals such as the notary consulting them. If this is how the liberated market in legal services in Europe is abused, how is it to function....?

These comments are my own as are those on the discussion, and I take full responsibilty for these in the hope that others will take a stand and protest. I understand that the European Parliament may raise this unfortunate issue with the Commission in the next committee.

The somewhat pathetic unrepentant reactions of the ECAS to this issue can be followed on @HarrisTax on Twitter.

What is ironic is that my initial critical observations were automatically favourited by this organisation. If one makes a mistake, does one not admit it and correct?