The UK formally informed the European Union of its intention to withdraw from the bloc by the transmission of a letter from the UK government to Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, indicating that it is invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, yesterday.
This act triggers a two-year period where the EU and UK negotiate their mutual disentanglement. The time can only be extended by the unanimous agreement of all parties. The UK government had hoped that it would be possible to discuss simultaneously the nature of the trading relationship between themselves and the EU post exit, but this appears to have been rebutted by Germany’s chancellor Merkel in the immediate aftermath of the declaration: “The negotiations must first clarify how we will disentangle our interlinked relationship. Only when this question is dealt with can we – hopefully soon after – begin talking about our future relationship.”
Mr Tusk commented that there would be no winners from the UK’s withdrawal and that the two year period would be concerned with “damage control”. “There is no need to pretend that this is a happy day, neither in Brussels nor in London. After all most Europeans, including almost half the British voters, wish that we would stay together, not drift apart.”
Considerable dismay has been expressed both in sections of the UK and on the continent of an apparently veiled threat that failure of the parties to come to a post Brexit deal could lead to a negative impact on UK-EU security cooperation.
The EU will publish its guidelines to dealing with the Brexit process tomorrow, but two issues certain to top the agenda are the fates of EU citizens resident in the UK and their counterparts living elsewhere in the EU and the issue of financial obligations to the EU from the UK in relation to items such as pensions and major projects that were already agreed to.
Whilst there is no mechanism to withdraw Article 50 notice, it is impossible to imagine an EU refusal to accept such a decision if the political situation in the UK was to change radically during the negotiation process.