Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire in the context of "Selim II"

The Third Ottoman Venetian War (1537–1540) was one of the Ottoman–Venetian wars which took place during the 16th century. The war arose out of the Franco-Ottoman alliance between Francis I of France and Süleyman I of the Ottoman Empire against the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The initial plan between the two had been to jointly invade Italy, Francis through Lombardy in the North and Süleyman through Apulia to the South. However, the proposed invasion failed to take place.

Charles-Marie-François Olier, marquis de Nointel (1635—1685), a councillor to the Parlement of Paris, was the French ambassador to the Ottoman court of Mehmed IV, from 1670 to 1679, charged from the first with renegotiating the Capitulations under which French merchants and others did business within the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Public Debt Administration (OPDA) (Ottoman Turkish: دیون عمومیهٔ عثمانیه واردات مخصصه اداره‌سی, romanized: Düyun-u Umumiye-i Osmaniye Varidat-ı Muhassasa İdaresi, or simply Düyun-u Umumiye as it was popularly known, French: Administration de la Dette Publique Ottomane, German: Öffentliche Schulden des Osmanischen Reichs), was a European-controlled organization that was established in 1881 to collect the payments which the Ottoman Empire owed to European companies in the Ottoman public debt. The OPDA became a vast, essentially independent, bureaucracy within the Ottoman bureaucracy, run by the creditors: Its governing council included one representative each from British, French, German, Austrian, Italian, Dutch, and Ottoman creditors, and one representative from the Ottoman state. It employed 5,000 officials who collected taxes that were then turned over to the European creditors. At its peak it had 9,000 employees, more than the empire's finance ministry.

The OPDA played an important role in Ottoman financial affairs. Also, it was an intermediary with European companies seeking investment opportunities in the Ottoman Empire. In 1900, the OPDA was financing many railways and other industrial projects. The financial and commercial privileges of the non-Muslim foreigners were protected with the capitulations of the Ottoman Empire.