Imagine that a fictitious, first world, industrialised, techological, secular, democratic, peaceful, advanced nation with a GDP equivalent to the 5th largest in the world suddenly materialised 30 miles off the coast of mainland Europe.
Call it “Bobblonia”
Would the E.U. prefer to have them trading under strict WTO scenarios or would they seek to forge a mutually beneficial relationship? What do they currently do with Turkey? Switzerland? Norway? Canada? Answer…they come to an arrangement.
I’m suspicious of any opinion from either side that posits a purely black or white choice. There is no absolute precedent here, there is no roadmap for how this is to progress, there are no examples to draw on. What happens in the next 10 years is pure guesswork and even more so when you consider the unresolved issues in France and The Netherlands plus ongoing economic woes in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
I have no doubt that a deal will be done that works for both parties. The world will not end, the sky will not fall in. The scaremongering from both sides is exactly that and serves merely to buff up the hooves before the horse-trading properly begins.
But of course “coming to a mutually agreeable deal” is not a headline that grabs the attention is it?
Of course the EU are going to come to arrangement. And they’re going to be aiming for an arrangement that has the maximum possible benefits for the EU, and the minimum possible costs. The UK, naturally, will take a similar but converse position. The question is: in this negotiation, who is better able to achieve their negotiating goals? For all negotiations, the answer to that is: whoever is able to walk away most cheaply. In this case, that’s the EU.
“If you don’t accept our offer, there’ll be new barriers to 12% of your trade!”
“And if *you *don’t accept *our *offer, there’ll be new barriers to 45% of your trade.”
The spectre of the UK leaving the EU is disruptive enough that the threat of it should be enough wring a better deal out of Europe. Cameron failed this time last year because no-one took the threat seriously. Now they do, that should give us leverage. But if we’re committed to leaving anyhow, the incentives to give us a better deal are vastly diminished.
Blair wants to use the presentation of the final deal as an opportunity to have a second democratic decision about leaving the EU, and he wants it in the hope that the decision would be to stay. Frankly, so do I. But discounting that, it is simple good practice to give yourself an opportunity to reject a bad deal. Not least because doing so vastly reduces your chances of getting a bad deal.
A rather bland point to make is there are 73 EU constituencies and 650 Parliamentary. Plus, the former tend to work away quite a lot.
Tell me something, who is responsible for investigating fraud in the EU agricultural subsidies budget and who oversees it, because (a) I still don’t know and (b) I’d like an idea of their record. For reference:
In general, I can’t disagree with any of this. I too think that, given what they know now, the E.U. and Cameron would have brokered a far more acceptable deal than actually materialised.
As regards who holds the better cards…one suspects it is the E.U. but that edifice is not in good health and it is very hard to say with any certainty what, if anything, might prove a tipping point. Greek default? Trade war with the US? French, Netherlands, German elections?
A less than optimal deal with the UK? well who knows? Define “cheap” for the E.U. is it purely financial or might the greater price be political?
The wording of Article 50 is quite unambiguous. If a member state gives notice, it’s out within two years, on a terms to be approved by qualified majority for the other member states. If it changes its mind and wants to rejoin, then it applies under the usual procedure (agreement by unanimity).
True, it does not say that all parties are forbidden from pretending that the notification to withdraw, once made, never existed, but it does say
The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.
If anyone were to take the question to the ECJ, would there be any serious prospect of them saying anything more flexible than that it would require unanimous agreement by the Council to allow the notification to be revoked?
And if you’ve pissed off enough member states by being perceived as the unwilling odd one out over the decades, flouncing out on a campaign of lies, and then wanting to unflounce, what are the chances of every other member state government welcoming you back with open arms?
I can see why you would want an opportunity to reject a bad deal. But it doesn’t follow that you will have an opportunity to reject a bad deal. As PatrickLondon points out, under the Treaty the Article 50 exit process is pretty much one-way. Once you’ve jumped out you either succeed in opening a parachute or you do not, but there’s no getting back in the plane.
And you can see why this would be. Those who drafted and enacted the Treaty didn’t actually want any Member State to leave the Union, so they wanted the leaving process to be discouraging and disadvantageous. Quite simply, the negotiating position of a leaving state is not a strong one, and that’s a feature, not a bug. The purpose of the Treaty is to ensure the health and well-being of the Union. To the extent that the interests of the departing state are aligned with that, great; to the extent that they are not, the departing state is not well-positioned to have its interests prevail.
They didn’t want members initiating the leaving process as a tactic for improving their own standing within the Union; that would obviously be disruptive and destabilising. So the leaving process is designed to be something you would only initiate if you are pretty much committed to leaving on whatever terms you can get.
For it to be “quite unambiguous” it would need to clearly state that revocation is impossible. it doesn’t say that. There were plenty
Until a country is out, they are in. A unilateral revocation leaves the onus on the E.U. to then force a country out. Of course none of these scenario have been tested so we have simply no idea how any of the situations would play out.
In any case, the E.U. is perfectly happy to make it up as it goes along. Greece is a perfect example. They had no hope of meeting the requirements for signing up to the Euro and yet…the books were cooked in full knowledge and they were welcomed aboard.
The European Court of Auditors is generally responsible for such oversight.
If you’ve been following the Lords EU Committee’s inquiries of late, you’ll also know that the EU’s oversight framework is actually seen as by and large pretty decent, and many environmental and agricultural are extremely concerned that Westminster is the body with woefully inadequate oversight, and far less likely to erect such oversight over itself than the EU institutions are.
Also, subsidies, for the time being, are here to stay. So we’re moving from an arguably okay situation to a potentially more corrupt one.
When Lord Rogers, the UK’s Permanent Representative [read, Ambassador] at the EU resigned, he said in his email to staff:
He’s been testifying before the Commons Brexit Select Committee today, and has elaborated somewhat:
Speaking before the European scrutiny committee three weeks ago, he reported that Whitehall was already struggling to cope:
The simple truth is that the UK doesn’t have a huge number of talented and experienced trade negotiators, because trade negotiation is done by the EU. The people with the talent and aptitude and experience are in Brussels, where they’ve been sharpening their act for years. You may see that as the pooling and sharing benefits of being in the EU, or you may see it as a shameful loss of sovereignty, but we are where we are: they have more and more experienced negotiators than we do.
This is all very true, and a good reason not rush into invoking A50 until you’re very clear about what you want to achieve from negotiations. But there are glimmers of hope:
Lord Kerr, who wrote A50, says it is not irrevocable. It’s not like he’s the controlling authority, but he’s probably got a point.
There’s a court case being pursued through the Irish courts which will establish whether A50 is revocable or not. A long shot, but it would at least offer clarity.
Practically, if the UK were to vote to remain after all, it would be open to the rEU to accept that and they probably would, for the sake of stability and of maintaining the EU. Also the money.
If the UK decides after serving Art 50 notice that it would like to stay after all, I think the I the realpolitik of this is:
If all EU-27 member states agree - great, no problem.
If a qualified majority in the Council agrees, but one or more member states disagree - a much murkier situation. Either we are off to the European Court of Justice to establish whether a qualified majority can validly agree to this (assuming the Irish case hasn’t already answered that question) or we’re into a round of horse-trading to see if the British not-leaving-after-all terms can be tweaked, or some other side-deal done, to secure the agreement of the dissentient member states. To put it no higher, I don’t think the UK can bank on either of these approaches having the desired outcome, and to go down this road but fail to secure continued membership would be a massive political humiliation for the UK government attempting it. So I don’t think they’ll attempt it.
If there isn’t even a qualified majority in the Council in favour of this - the UK is cactus, I’m afraid.
Between the legal and the political considerations it’s very doubtful if, having once served Art 50 notice, the UK government can successfully revoke it, and an unsuccessful attempt to revoke it would be a political disaster of epic proportions.
As I understand it, recent changes mean that Article 50 does come under QMV. However, that was envisaged as applying to the deal for exit, not for any decision to *rescind *A50 so you’re right that there could easily be a spanner in the works, and someone might need to be bought off. That would have its own political implications in the UK, of course.
I think the biggest card the UK has to play is that the rhetoric we’ve been hearing about the importance of EU unity and commitment to the European idea is more than just rhetoric. (Witness Merkel putting the commitment to the four freedoms above a deal that favours German car manufacturers, for example.) It’s one thing for the EU to be disrupted by the UK choosing to leave - it’s quite another for the EU to disrupt the EU by kicking the UK out when it wants to stay. To do that would undercut the whole concept of the EU. Which isn’t to say that the UK wouldn’t lose face, and have to pay some kind of premium to get in - one can imagine Spain extracting concessions over Gibraltar, for example - but when push comes to shove I’d expect the EU to grudgingly let the UK stay rather than vindictively kick us out.
But you’re right - any path to staying in is fraught with peril and hostage to any number of factors, and with plenty of opportunities to go wrong. But there’s still a choice to be made about whether that is a better or worse shot than whatever deal comes out the negotiations - a deal which itself will leave us in a position fraught with peril, hostage to any number of factors, and with plenty of opportunities to go wrong.
I think it will be clear that if the EU permitted the UK to stay it won’t be on status quo ante, as Stanislaus says - the EU will want something from the UK to make up for the hassle it’s gone through.
The EU Committee has its oral evidence sessions (and the transcripts) up online for you to read. Here’s the conclusion from its recent report on environment and climate change after Brexit: