The State of the European Union. The European states facing the reforms of the Union

SPRING 2018 BREXIT NEGOTIATIONS: PROGRESS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

means of a friendly, consensual agreement or

in an atmosphere of conflict often referred to

as a cliff-edge scenario. Although direct costs

related to economic activity that will no longer

take place or will contract due to price increas-

es will inevitably be high, one must also con-

sider indirect costs associated with such things

as the creation of new entities, structures and

administrative procedures, the relocation of

agencies and the burden of coping with addi-

tional red tape. The economic burden Brexit

supposes for the EU will not be limited to the

cost of establishing a new relationship frame-

work with the UK but also entail a number of

challenges that will need to be dealt with over

time such as lower operating budgets, the

qualitative impact on different policies (of ma-

jor importance in the case of the CFSP) and the

necessity of renegotiating numerous trade

agreements.

Regardless of the final conditions under

which Brexit eventually occurs, both parties will

inevitably end up paying a price, a reality that

distinguishes the negotiations now underway

from others and places them in a unique cate-

gory. The unpalatable task facing negotiators is

to manage a separation, or disintegration if you

will, that implies losses for both parties involved

and benefits for none. Their shared objective is

therefore minimising what each stands to lose

by implementing what the European chief nego-

tiator has publicly referred to as a “damage con-

trol policy”

. This characteristic of the process

European Council President Donald Tusk and Chief

European negotiator Michel Barnier have stated on a

number of public occasions that Europe’s main objective is

“damage control”. For an example, see: Tusk, D.:

Remarks

following the UK notification,

Brussels, 29 March 2017,

(Press Release 160/17).

significantly lowers its chances of success given

that negotiators are generally willing to make

painful concessions when they perceive the pos-

sibility of some sort of pay back further down

the line but are much less disposed to do so in

the absence of such a perspective. The only

thing that could possibly motivate the parties

engaged in these negotiations to work together

in a spirit of cooperation is a mutual fear of the

abyss that looms before them, or, in other

words, a common awareness that the failure to

reach an exit agreement will result in enormous

economic and political losses on both sides of

the English Channel.

Negotiations on the withdrawal

of the United Kingdom from the

European Union: progress

achieved during phase I (July-December

2017)

The process of UK withdrawal from the EU for-

mally began on 29 March 2017 with British

Prime Minister Teresa May’s written notification

to the European Council in accordance with

Article 50 of the TEU

. This act set the Brexit

clock ticking and inaugurated the two-year pe-

riod allowed for the negotiation of a “withdraw-

al agreement”, which under the conditions laid

out in the TEU must take “the framework for the

future relationship” between the UK and the EU

into account. According to this timetable, Brexit

will become a reality on 30 March 2019 notwith-

standing a unanimous decision on the part of

May, T.:

Letter to Donald Tusk triggering Article 50,

London, 29

March 2017.