15 May 2019

EUROPP: Understanding the enhanced role of the European Parliament in the Brexit negotiations

Carlos Closa writes that the Parliament has effectively crafted a central role for itself in the Brexit process. This has been achieved by combining the unconcealed brandishing of its veto threat with the promotion of strong internal unity and supporting the Commission’s role as central negotiator.

Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) limits the role of the European Parliament (EP) to assent to the withdrawal agreement between a withdrawing state and the European Union. From this very plain and apparently unambiguous description, the EP has positioned itself centrally in the Brexit negotiations and has created procedural mechanisms for its involvement, allowing it to set clear limits to the substantive content of the withdrawal agreement. Given the limited powers granted to it by the original treaty, how has the EP been able to expand its role under Article 50?

Like almost any other treaty provision, Article 50 contains a significant degree of ambiguity that permits actors to interpret and redefine the rules of the game within the existing provisions. Previous research has shown that the EP behaves as a ‘power-maximiser’ and has exploited treaty ambiguities to reinterpret rules to its own advantage. This has happened before in the areas of treaty-making and trade agreements. On these precedents, the EP has followed the same pattern of maximising power on a procedure that the EU has never applied before and which was largely unregulated.

The EP moved very quickly in the early stages of the Brexit process, opportunistically taking charge of the situation to interpret rules before any other EU institution did. To accomplish this, the EP has exploited the significant leverage offered by the requirement for its consent to the final withdrawal agreement, repeatedly signalling its willingness to transform the vote into a veto of both the agreement and the scope of its own procedural role in the negotiations. The EP has maximised the credibility of its veto threat by actively seeking to unite political groups to promote and present a single and unified stance. For this, EP actors in the withdrawal process have used institutional procedures to marginalise Eurosceptics. The EP’s empowerment has also relied on its skilful exploitation of its synergetic relationship with the European Commission by fully endorsing the latter’s role as negotiator. [...]

Full article on LSE's blog EUROPP

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