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EU Membership: Formal and Substantive Dimensions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2020

Paul CRAIG
Paul CRAIG*
Affiliation:
St John's College Oxford
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Abstract

Membership is central to the EU, as it is to any other international organisation. Withdrawal has assumed centre-stage through Brexit. While there is literature that is relevant to membership, most notably through academic discourse on differentiated integration, there is little more general inquiry concerning membership, the concept of which has importance and implications over and beyond more particular avenues of scholarship. This article examines the formal and substantive dimensions of membership and withdrawal in the EU.

Keywords

membershipaccessionwithdrawaldutiesremediesdifferentiated integration
Type
Articles
Information
Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies , Volume 22 , December 2020 , pp. 1 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Centre for European Legal Studies, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge

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Footnotes

*

Emeritus Professor of Law, St John's College, Oxford. This article originated as the 2020 Mackenzie Stuart lecture, which I gave in Cambridge, and then in Durham. I am grateful for the comments that I received on both occasions.

References

1 Arts 9–11 TEU.

2 European Union, ‘Joining the EU’, https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/countries_en#joining; European Commission, ‘Conditions for Membership’, https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/policy/conditions-membership_en.

3 Regulation (EU) 231/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2014 establishing an Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA II) [2014] OJ L77/11, rec 3.

4 Ibid, rec 7; European Commission, ‘European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations', https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/instruments/how-does-it-work_en.

5 European Commission, ‘Chapters of the Acquis’, https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/policy/conditions-membership/chapters-of-the-acquis_en.

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10 Arts 28–36, 45, 49, 56, 63, 110 TFEU.

11 Arts 107–09 TFEU.

12 Art 3(6) TEU.

13 See further Art 26 TFEU.

14 Art 3(5) TEU specifies that the EU ‘shall contribute to peace, security, the sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity and mutual respect among peoples, free and fair trade, eradication of poverty and the protection of human rights, in particular the rights of the child, as well as to the strict observance and the development of international law, including respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter’.

15 Art 132(3) TFEU.

16 Art 108(2) TFEU.

17 Art 126(11) TFEU.

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33 C-391/17, EU:C:2019:919, paras 96–98, 127.

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35 Ibid, para 102.

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37 OPR-Finance sro v GK, C-679/18, EU:C:2020:167, para 25.

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39 NV Algemene Transporten Expeditie Onderneming van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen, 26/62 [1963] ECR 1.

40 Ibid, pp 6–9.

41 Ibid, p 12.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid, pp 12-13.

46 Ibid, p 13.

47 Ibid.

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58 Dereci, C–256/11 [2011] ECR I–11315.

59 McCarthy, C–434/09 [2011] ECR I–3375.

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72 Ibid, pp 122–23.

73 Schmidt, note 64 above.

74 Ibid, p 295.

75 COM(2017) 2025, White Paper on the Future of Europe—Reflections and Scenarios for the EU27 by 2025.

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78 Ibid, p 311.

79 R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2017] UKSC 5.

80 Wightman v Secretary of State for the EU, C-621/18, EU:C:2018:999.

81 Ibid, para 50.

82 Ibid, para 57.

83 Ibid, para 63.

84 Ibid, para 65.

85 Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community [2020] OJ L29/7.

86 Political declaration setting out the framework for the future relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom [2019] OJ C384 I/02.