Withdrawal Negotiations Research Articles

Institutional aspects of the withdrawal process from the European Union - Brexit and post-Brexit

Interdependence in a globalized world implies managing processes in many areas that are regulated at the international level - this is the role that International Governmental Organizations have adopted during the century of their existence. Their work and success are causally linked to the competencies and decision-making processes, as well as to the breadth and agility of member states. This is the reason why many International Organizations do not provide options for withdrawal or exclusion from membership. In that regard, European Union, as a supranational international organization, is proving its uniqueness in the international organizing. Considering that the Lisbon Treaty envisaged for the first time institute of withdrawal in Article 50, this possibility has been the subject of numerous theoretical debates, but it also become practice. The UK?s withdrawal agreement from the EU marked the beginning of new type of negotiations as well as the future relations between former Member State and the European Union. The paper analyzes three institutional aspects of the withdrawal process. Firstly, the procedure envisaged in Article 50 of the Treaty which is, in comparison to typical international organizations, more institutionalized. Secondly, the withdrawal negotiations concluded with the signing of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement that set standards for potential future withdrawals, and this paper examines its institutional aspects focusing on dispute resolution. Thirdly, the paper analyzes the institutional aspects of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which establishes a new form of association as a legal framework for the future relations between the withdrawing state and the European Union. The authors use a comparative method to determine the institutional peculiarities of the agreements.

The Brexit puzzle: polity attack and external rebordering

Brexit constitutes a puzzle for integration theory. Functionalist analyses have not only failed to predict the UK’s exit but have also underestimated the disintegrative dynamics of the withdrawal negotiations. By contrast, postfunctionalism accounts for the disintegrative Brexit process but struggles to explain the unity and defence of supranational integration among the EU-27. This article tries to make sense of the Brexit puzzle. First, it argues that Brexit constitutes an attack on the EU polity rather than a policy failure – the type of crisis that functionalist theories explain best. Second, it complements the postfunctionalist account of domestic politicisation with an analysis of the reactions and strategies of the defenders of supranational integration. According to this expanded postfunctionalist analysis, the interaction of polity attack and polity defence has produced ‘external rebordering’: extreme disintegration of the UK from the EU, on the one hand, and strengthened integration of the EU-27, on the other.

Coping, struggling, or just getting by? Brexit and its implications for Czech and Slovak security and defence policies

ABSTRACT The overarching goal of this article is to investigate the extent to which and the ways in which the Brexit process impacted the policies of Czechia and Slovakia in the security and defence (S&D) domain between 2016 and 2020 and how the two countries positioned themselves in this area during the withdrawal negotiations. More specifically, the study explores 1) the strategies pursued by Czech and Slovak national authorities to cope with Brexit (hiding, seeking shelter, hedging); 2) the underlying logics of these strategies (the logics of appropriateness and consequence); and 3) how these coping strategies influence the Europeanisation of Czech and Slovak foreign policies (especially in terms of undermining or reinforcing them). The analysis draws on information derived from semi-structured elite interviews and numerous off-the-record meetings with diplomatic sources, senior civil servants and other officials from Czechia and Slovakia alike.

Brexit Dilemmas: Shaping Postwithdrawal Relations with a Leaving State

AbstractHow do voters want their governments to respond when another country unilaterally withdraws from an international institution? We distinguish between negotiation approaches that vary in the degree to which they accommodate the withdrawing state's demands and argue that negotiation preferences are shaped by two issues. The first is voters’ exposure to the costs and benefits of accommodation. This exposure varies across issues, and we argue that citizens will generally prefer non-accommodation on zero-sum issues, but support more accommodation on cooperation issues, where non-accommodation puts existing cooperation gains at risk. Second, withdrawal negotiations create precedents, and citizens should therefore be less willing to accommodate the more they are concerned about the ripple effects of accommodation on the institution's stability. These concerns also confront citizens with two types of dilemmas depending on how favorably they view the institution themselves. To test our argument, we use survey evidence and a conjoint experiment conducted in Germany and Spain during the Brexit negotiations. We find that respondents overall are more willing to accommodate the UK on cooperation issues than on zero-sum issues, but also find evidence that Euroskeptics and Europhiles confront different issue-specific dilemmas. Our paper contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics surrounding the challenges to multilateralism that have proliferated in recent years.

Northern Ireland and Brexit: where sovereignty and stability collide?

ABSTRACT Having been issues which stimulated little discussion beyond Northern Ireland before the Brexit referendum, the ‘Irish issue’ dominated and complicated the subsequent EU–UK withdrawal negotiations. The ‘taking back control’ narrative bears the hallmarks of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s notion of a ‘recaptured sovereignty’. This conception of sovereignty, however, clashes with the post-sovereign character and content of the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. The institutions created by the Agreement move beyond the old frameworks for political order by creating a series of interlocking territorial, cross-territorial, and cross-national institutions based on shared sovereignty. This prompts critical questions about the resilience and sustainability of the Agreement against the backdrop of a shift in sovereignty which appears incompatible with the key tenets of Northern Ireland’s peace agreement. This article examines how Northern Ireland’s approach to and experience of the EU referendum differed from the rest of the UK. It queries how the referendum result, subsequent political and electoral developments, and difficulties in agreeing a withdrawal formula and future UK–EU relationship, expose the gap between the UK’s commitments to a post-sovereign arrangement for Northern Ireland and the preference for a return to an older conception of sovereignty as implied by the Brexit vote.

Brexit Domino? The Political Contagion Effects of Voter-endorsed Withdrawals from International Institutions

This article examines the systemic implications of the growing popular backlash against international cooperation and analyzes how voter-endorsed attempts to withdraw from international institutions reverberate abroad. Observing other countries’ disintegration experiences allows voters to better assess the feasibility and desirability of such withdrawals. More positive withdrawal experiences encourage exit-support abroad, whereas negative experiences are likely to have a deterring effect. These contagion effects will be conditioned by the availability of information and voters’ willingness to learn. The article empirically examines this argument for the case of Brexit. It leverages original survey data from 58,959 EU-27 Europeans collected in six survey waves during the Brexit withdrawal negotiations and from a two-wave survey of 2,241 Swiss voters conducted around the first Brexit extension in spring 2019. It finds both encouragement and deterrence effects, which are bigger when respondents pay attention to Brexit and are dampened by motivated reasoning.

Forging Unity: European Commission Leadership in the Brexit Negotiations.

This article explains why the European Union has remained strikingly cohesive during the Brexit withdrawal negotiations by focussing on the role played by its negotiator: the European Commission'’s Task Force 50. The analysis demonstrates that the Task Force 50 set out to forge unity among the EU27 by exercising both subtle instrumental and direct political leadership. The Commission significantly influenced the outcome of the negotiations by shaping the agenda and process, brokering deals, and ultimately achieving a withdrawal agreement that all member states signed up to. Its transparent and consultative behaviour generated trust among member states, which allowed the Commission to play such a prominent role. These findings challenge the prevailing view that the EU has become increasingly intergovernmental at expense of the Commission. Drawing on original interviews, the article substantiates this argument by tracing the Commission's leadership activities in the run‐up to and throughout the withdrawal negotiations (2016–20).

Internationalisation, Brexit, and the EU academic system: a case study in Austria

ABSTRACT The withdrawal negotiations after the United Kingdom (UK) voted to leave the European Union (EU) have fuelled discussions concerning the expected repercussions on higher education and research in Europe and call for discussing Brexit against the backdrop of internationalisation and the role of the UK in the European higher education and research landscape. When analysing Brexit as a counter development to internationalisation efforts, the question arises as to how institutions in different EU countries deal with and adapt to the new situation that is susceptible to substantially changing the European higher education landscape. By taking Austria as an example and by comparing our findings with other European countries, we study the responses of higher education institutions (HEIs) in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. To understand if and how Austrian HEIs prepared for Brexit, we conducted semi-structured expert interviews with representatives of International Relation Offices. Despite the awareness that Brexit might have negative consequences, the institutions mainly adopted a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude. The institutions justified this rather passive response by highlighting the uncertain outcome of the Brexit negotiations. However, they also showed a commitment to finding solutions and new strategies once the terms of the UK leave are set.

Northern Ireland: A ‘Place Between’ in UK–EU Relations?

UK withdrawal from the EU – Brexit – poses particular challenges for Northern Ireland notably concerning its essentially invisible border with Ireland, an important feature of the peace process. With the EU having committed to finding ‘flexible and imaginative solutions’ during the withdrawal negotiations to address the ‘unique circumstances on the island of Ireland’, the UK and the EU agreed differentiated withdrawal terms in a dedicated Protocol on Ireland/ Northern Ireland. These effectively keep Northern Ireland in the EU customs territory and, through a process of dynamic regulatory alignment, its internal market for goods. A unique but contested status – a ‘place between’ in the UK–EU relationship – has thus been conferred on Northern Ireland. The Protocol has some important shortcomings and implementation poses significant challenges yet also offers opportunities. How the challenges are met will play an important role in determining whether in 2024 members of the Northern Ireland Assembly vote to retain these arrangements. If they do not, politicians and officials will once again be faced with the question of how to avoid a physical hardening of the border on the island of Ireland. Brexit, Institutional Framework, European Union, United Kingdom, Withdrawal Agreement, Political Declaration

In the spotlight, or behind the scenes? The European Parliament as an actor in Article 50 withdrawal negotiations

ABSTRACT The article researches the performance of the European Parliament (EP) in the Article 50 withdrawal negotiations. Drawing upon insights from the actorness concept, the inquiry assesses the EP’s performance on the basis of Kaunert’s, Léonard’s and MacKenzie’s conceptualisation of actorness, i.e. in terms of the six variables of capacity, legitimacy, initiative, autonomy, cohesion and recognition. The paper finds that, within the Article 50 negotiations, the EP established itself as a distinct, ambitious actor in its own right, with its actorness being a complex reality that manifested in a number of ways. Serving as the ultimate veto power, the ability to withhold consent to the final deal lent the EP a strategic advantage and represented the principal source of parliamentary influence in this area. With Brexit high on the assembly’s agenda, the EP successfully claimed its voice in withdrawal negotiations beyond the simple power of consent and its soft power in the subject area increased precipitously throughout the process. The finding also points to a strong pattern of continuity in the EP’s acting on Brexit before and after May 2019 elections.

Life and work across the Irish border through Brexit

Changing the status of the Irish border to an external boundary between the UK and the EU was always going to be difficult to manage. Both the UK and the EU shared the objective of avoiding a hard border but finding the means of doing so proved to be a complex technical and diplomatic challenge. Whilst the withdrawal negotiations continued, concerns grew among those who would be most directly affected. Despite a history of conflict and underdevelopment, the Irish border region had become one of the most successfully integrated in the world. This only increased the potential price to be paid for Brexit by those living and working there. Successful cross-border development depends on the conditions for, and habits of, cooperation fostered ‘on the ground’. The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland in the Withdrawal Agreement brings some assurance about maintaining the conditions of north/south cooperation. Nonetheless, the UK/EU border problem that falls on Northern Ireland will persist as a topic in perpetual need of political sensitivity and accommodation.

Brexit: An Assessment of the Unprecedented Divorce Story and the Long Path to Ex-Membership

The UK which had been one of the major members of the EU, currently has been holding the status of an ‘ex-member’ following almost a four years of a rocky withdrawal process that took place for the first time ever in the EU history. This unprecedented withdrawal is likely to come up with severe negative outcomes particularly for the UK side in comparison to remaining in the Union. This study seeks to demonstrate the likely legal, political and economic ramifications of the British withdrawal by particularly concentrating on the highly critical and debated issues bargained during the withdrawal negotiations as well as to draw a detailed comparison of the outcomes of an exit under the framework of a withdrawal agreement and a no-deal scenario. Yet, the paper concludes that the second round of negotiations for determining on the terms of a future relationship might not be as less difficult than the first round examined in this study.

Brexit for finance? Structural interdependence as a source of financial political power within UK-EU withdrawal negotiations

For most analysts, Brexit reveals the highly contingent power of finance and the clear limits to its ability to influence crucial policymaking outcomes. By contrast, I contend that UK-EU negotiations demonstrate the unique capacity of finance to secure substantial commercial protections relative to all other business sectors and that the structural sources of the City’s political power remain exceptionally robust. Elaborating a notion of ‘structural interdependence’, the paper demonstrates how policy officials on both sides came to perceive that the future prosperity and stability of their economies relied upon maintaining open trading relations in financial services. This necessitated broad continuity in access to London’s deep financial markets for EU firms and preservation of the City’s leading role in the UK growth regime. In establishing these claims empirically, I document an extensive range of contingency measures designed throughout December 2018-April 2019 that would function to protect the financial industry from economic disruption in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The outcome illustrates how finance benefits from a form of structural power that does not require instrumental mobilisation, but rather shapes policy decisions on the basis of deeply entrenched and commercially vital cross-border financial entanglements.

Expectations, vote choice and opinion stability since the 2016 Brexit referendum

A surprising development in the post-referendum Brexit process has been that vote intentions have remained largely stable, despite the cumbersome withdrawal negotiations. We examine this puzzle by analyzing the role of voters’ expectations about the European Union’s willingness to accommodate the UK after the pro-Brexit vote. Using data from the British Election Study, we explore how these expectations are updated over time, and how they are related to vote intentions. We find that voters who were more optimistic about the European Union’s response were more likely to vote Leave. Over the course of the negotiations, Leavers have become more disillusioned. These adjustments, however, have not translated into shifts in vote intentions. Overall, we find evidence that motivated reasoning is an important driver of public opinion on Brexit.

The Strange Case of Northern Ireland's Disappearing Rights in the EU-UK Withdrawal Negotiations

The draft European Union (EU)-United Kingdom (UK) Withdrawal Agreement did not suddenly coalesce in November 2018. It was the product of a process involving multiple iterations, some of them public, including the Joint Report of December 2017, the EU Commission’s draft text of March 2018, and the UK negotiating position of June 2018. From the outset of this process, securing the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement and an open border in Ireland were accepted by all negotiating parties as priorities for the first phase of Brexit negotiations. What rapidly became evident, however, was that there was no shared understanding of what those goals required. Through these snapshots of the negotiations the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement’s requirements were framed and reframed. As a result, understandings of concepts of non-diminution and non-retrogression shifted across these documents. So too did the categories of rights-holder within Northern Ireland, and the degree to which EU rights will still be able to be relied upon in what, following the completion of the withdrawal process under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, is set to become territory external to the EU. This contribution examines how the potential scope of EU rights protections operating in Northern Ireland narrowed during the negotiations towards the draft Withdrawal Agreement and reflects upon whether this narrowing is better explained by the UK’s robust negotiating position, or by the extent to which the EU institutions became concerned with the implications of the potential reach of the special status on offer for Northern Ireland for the coherence of EU law.

Great Expectations or Misplaced Hopes? The Role of the Visegrád Group in the Brexit Process

The article explores the role played by the Visegrád Group—a multilateral platform of four Central and Eastern European states (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia)—in the Brexit process. It surveys the group's performance during two distinct phases of the Brexit process: first, David Cameron's EU renegotiations and, second, the first phase of the Article 50 (withdrawal) negotiations, ending in December 2017. The author concludes that while the group managed to maximise its clout in the case of EU renegotiations, it has been much less effective during the withdrawal negotiations in the period under study.

Inter-institutional cooperation and intergroup unity in the shadow of veto: the construction of the EP’s institutional role in the Brexit negotiations

ABSTRACT From its initially limited role under Article 50 in the withdrawal negotiations, the EP has constructed a central role for itself in the process. How was the EP able to shape the rules to its advantage? As instruments to enhance its own role, the EP combined the unconcealed brandishing of its veto threat with the promotion of strong internal unity and supporting the Commission’s role as central negotiator. The EP was able to exploit interpretative ambiguities in the incomplete contract which is the EU Lisbon Treaty to reinforce its institutional position.

Policy Paper: Northern Ireland and the Brave New World of Brexit

This policy paper is part of an extended research project examining the impact upon Northern Ireland of the UK’s changing relationship with Europe. With October 2017 witnessing the beginning of consideration of amendments to the EU Withdrawal Bill and the culmination of efforts to address aspects of Brexit affecting the island of Ireland in Phase 1 of the UK’s withdrawal negotiations this paper is intended to focus on some of the emerging issues for Northern Ireland as the contours of Brexit become increasingly defined.

Cooperative Brexit: Giving back control over trade policy*

Pursuant to Article 50 TEU, Member States may decide to leave the EU, but EU law—including the principle of “sincere cooperation”—continues to apply while withdrawal negotiations take place. This creates a fundamental and underappreciated difference between withdrawal negotiations with a departing EU Member State (to which that principle applies) and arms-length negotiations between the Union and non-EU Member States (to which it does not). In particular, this article argues that the principle of sincere cooperation requires the Union and a departing Member States to pursue a “cooperative” approach to withdrawal, and applies that proposition to the contested area of trade policy in the context of the United Kingdom’s impending withdrawal from the Union. It argues that one way in which the Union could give expression to the principle of sincere cooperation would be to re-empower the UK to negotiate trade agreements on its own account, prior to the effective date of its withdrawal. This provides one example of the ways in which EU law beyond Article 50 TEU frames and structures the exit process, and one way in which the Union can affirm its central principles (and the bases of its enduring legitimacy) even in the difficult context of a Member State’s exit.

Legal Issues Arising from the Brexit Referendum: A UK and EU Constitutional Analysis

The dust has not yet settled after the referendum on Britain's relationship with the EU, which took place on 23 June 2016. UK voted to leave the EU by 51.9% to 48.1%, which is a winning margin of almost 1.3 million votes. However, it is not yet clear what ‘Brexit’ means or how it will come about – legally and constitutionally. This article seeks to answer the latter question from the standpoint of UK and EU law. The discussion begins with the domestic process before beginning the initial withdrawal negotiations, which is governed by UK constitutional law. The focus then shifts to the process of withdrawing from the EU, which is set out in Article 50 TEU. This article further examines whether ‘Brexit’ can be stopped once Article 50 has been triggered. The penultimate section of the article looks at the legal nature and substantive content of the agreements that might be concluded between the UK and the EU if ‘Brexit’ were to become a reality. The final section of the article examines the UK rules on ratification of such international agreements.