INTRODUCTION

This examination has arrived at the end point of its journey through the various aspects involved in exercising a choice of court or choice of law within the present EU private international law framework relating to family matters and succession. By employing a simultaneous approach, the provisions that allow for party autonomy within the relevant instruments have been evaluated in successive stages: (i) the preliminary elements of choice; (ii) the content of choice; and (iii) the variables aff ecting choice. This final step involves a reconsideration of the established manifestation of party autonomy with a view to establishing coherence with the parameters attached to this concept in the Union context.

This concluding synthesis brings together the strands of this investigation by integrating the findings back into the context of the values through which this evaluation has been conducted. In the interests of clarity, the synthesis will invert the order of the two introductory chapters that established these principles, presenting the impact of the relevant provisions in view of the EU legislator‘s objectives in unifying Member States‘ private international law rules (11.2.–11.4.), before taking the final step of (re-)considering the manifestation of free will in the EU‘s private international law rules relating to family matters and succession in light of the findings that have been established (11.5.).

The following sections follow the pattern established in the main chapters by examining (i) the general findings; (ii) the interplay between related areas; and (iii) the gaps to be addressed. The final considerations, set out in 11.6., will propose a number of closing suggestions in view of the key findings of this book.

LEGAL CERTAINTY

Turning attention first to the impact of party autonomy upon the specific obstacles that the unification of the EU‘s private international law rules on family matters and succession seeks to address (see Chapter 3), this synthesis begins by recapping on the aspects of legal uncertainty that international parties face in exercising their right to free movement in the European Union. Legal certainty is a difficult principle to succinctly describe, and its definition is not comprehensively examined in the relevant instruments or accompanying documentation.