10.15166/2499-8249/335
https://www.europeanpapers.eu/en/e-journal/getting-brexit-done-just-the-beginning-not-the-end
2499-8249
Lazowski, Adam
Adam
Lazowski
University of Westminster
'Getting Brexit Done': It Is Just the Beginning, not the End
European Papers (www.europeanpapers.eu)
2020
Brexit
United Kingdom
European Union
Withdrawal Agreement
Internal Market
EU Policies
2020-03-14
Research Centre for European Law, Unitelma Sapienza - University of Rome
eng
Editorial
text/html
PDF
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 2019 4(3), 671-674
After 47 years of membership, the United Kingdom has left the European Union at the end of January 2020. But Brexit is far from being done. For anyone au courant with EU affairs, it is rather obvious that the hardest part of Brexit is yet to be delivered. The entry into force of the Withdrawal Agreement is a watershed moment in the history of EU integration. The Withdrawal Agreement - which provides a legal framework for Brexit - regulates primarily the separation issues. It deals, inter alia, with the acquired rights of EU and UK migrating citizens, the UK contributions to the EU budget and future arrangement for Northern Ireland. Furthermore, it also serves as a foundation for the transitional period, keeping the UK outside of the EU institutional framework but inside of the Internal Market and all other EU policies. So, Brexit is not done yet; it is in progress. The end of transition is penciled in for 31 December 2020, with a possibility of a single extension, either for 1 or 2 years. So, what one can expect from the forthcoming negotiations? The Brexit spectacle has come to the end of Act 1. After a short interval, a way more dramatic Act 2 has begun. There is no detailed and comprehensive script, just a few sketches. Inevitably, it will be largely improvised.