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Article 50 and Member State Sovereignty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Abstract

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Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union was originally viewed by national constitutional courts as an important provision for upholding state sovereignty. The German Constitutional Court emphasized the provision in its reconciliation of the Lisbon Treaty with state sovereignty. The Czech and Latvian Constitutional Courts saw Article 50 as creating a balanced process for the exercise of the sovereign right to withdraw from the European Union. Prior to the Brexit referendum, there was little doubt in the literature that an Article 50 agreement could address the entirety of the future relationship between a withdrawing member state and the European Union. Since the Brexit referendum, the European Union has taken an increasingly narrow view of Article 50. This, combined with interpretations of other Treaty provisions, have both created significant disadvantages to the withdrawing member state. If—above and beyond natural imbalances in bargaining power—EU Law creates a position of inequality between the withdrawing member state and the EU in negotiations, then the pooled-sovereignty model of the European Union is called into doubt. Article 50 cannot simultaneously be viewed as upholding state sovereignty, whilst being exit-hostile to any state that uses the provision.

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Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by German Law Journal, Inc. 

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154 Id. at 43–44, para. 4 (2017). Ironically, such an approach would take the same position on the amount of EU contributions as on the notorious “We send the EU £350 million a week” slogan by “Vote Leave” in referendum campaign.Google Scholar

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176 On pooled sovereignty, see Jaka, Andras, Neutralizing the Sovereignty Question: Compromise Strategies in Constitutional Argumentation Before European Integration and Since, 37 Eur. Const. L.R. 375, 393 (2006). See also Nález Ústavniho soudu ze dne 26.11.2008 (ÚS) [Decision of the Constitutional Court of Nov. 26, 2008] ÚS 19/08 paras. 104–06 (Czech); Nález Ústavniho soudu ze dne 03.11.2000 (ÚS) [Decision of the Constitutional Court of Nov. 3, 2009] Pl. ÜS 29/09 para. 147 (Czech).Google Scholar

177 Council Decision, supra note 8, at Explanatory Note; Council Guidelines, supra note 8, at para. 5.Google Scholar

178 E.g., Kevin Doyle, We Won't Help the UK Come up With Border Solution, Independent (July 28, 2017, 2:59 PM), https://www.independent.ie/business/brexit/we-wont-help-the-uk-come-up-with-border-solution-leo-varadkar-35977592.html.Google Scholar

179 Vermeule, supra note 97, at 399. For the origin of this approach, see Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice 118–23 (2d ed. 1999). It is also—from a republican rather than a liberal perspective—the same point recently made in respect of “equal concern and respect” for those addressed by a law. See Yuratich, David, Article 13(2) TEU: Institutional Balance, Sincere Co-Operation, and Non-Domination During Lawmaking?, 18 German L.J. 99, 107 (2017) (only applied as between member states rather than citizens). Unless the act of withdrawing from the EU itself manifests a lack of equal concern and respect on the part of the withdrawing member state, its concerns in the process should be hypothesized by the law as being equal to that of the remaining part of the EU.Google Scholar

180 See supra note 176, and accompanying text.Google Scholar

181 See Declaración 1/2004, supra note 25 (“the right to leave will have a promoting effect on the European integration process”).Google Scholar

182 Garcia, supra note 2, at 1020.Google Scholar

183 Friel, supra note 48, at 426.Google Scholar

184 Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217, paras. 90–95, (Can.).Google Scholar

185 See supra notes 8–12, and accompanying text.Google Scholar

186 Id. at para 95.Google Scholar

187 Tridimas, supra note 7, at 313.Google Scholar

188 Smismans, supra note 1.Google Scholar