
Brexit: UK can unilaterally revoke article 50, says EU court - gpderetta
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/10/uk-can-unilaterally-stop-brexit-process-eu-court-rules
======
tom_mellior
The court's press release:
[https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/201...](https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2018-12/cp180191en.pdf)
The actual ruling text is available via:
[http://curia.europa.eu/juris/documents.jsf?num=C-621/18](http://curia.europa.eu/juris/documents.jsf?num=C-621/18)

One possible effect of this is that other countries will now try threatening
to exit the EU, hoping to pressure it for special opt-outs and rebates. (As
the UK has succesfully done in the past.) If they can revoke the invocation of
Article 50, it would seem that they have nothing to lose.

Although the complete disaster that Brexit has been so far coupled with the
hard line taken by the EU and even by third countries like Norway
([https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/07/norwegian-p...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/07/norwegian-
politicians-reject-uks-norway-plus-brexit-plan)) do look very discouraging to
countries looking to try this. We'll see how it plays out.

~~~
Arnt
Is the EU's line hard? AFAICT the EU insists on preserving the Good Friday
agreement and won't do anything that requires renegotiating treaties with
third countries, but apart from those two the EU seems very flexible... what
am I missing?

~~~
tom_mellior
The EU has repeatedly stated that it will not allow the Four Freedoms to be
weakened or separated; that is, allow (for example) free movement of goods and
capital to and from the UK, but not free movement of labor.

From the point of view of certain Brexiters this is a hard line. Though I
agree that it isn't really that hard. It's just to continue enforcing what the
EU currently is.

EDIT: There is the hard line of the exit bill, though. Although I believe that
that has been negotiated down from a humongous sum to a merely enormous one.

~~~
Arnt
IIRC that hasn't been negotiated at all, merely recomputed.

There were things like pensions that were effectively decided on long ago. The
1985 budget said "the salary budget this year will be...; the member countries
promise to pay the related pensions later, whatever the sum turns out to be."
Ditto other years. Someone's now gone though past budgets and tried to sum up
all those non-numbers (both pensions and other future commitments). Must've
been a terrible job.

(Edit: fixed conflicting use of x.)

