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After Brexit pp 65–82Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Brexit and the Future of the EU: Move Back or Move Forward?

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Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to undertake a legal-political analysis of the most relevant issues raised by Brexit and the impact they may have on the future of both the United Kingdom and the rest of the European Union.

Being at a tipping point, and regardless of the consequences that Brexit will have on relations between the European Union and the United Kingdom, this momentum proves to be crucial for the European Union to reflect on the past and, indeed, on the future it seeks for itself.

Brexit can sound like the ring of an alarm that will allow us to relaunch the European Union project and it can represent an opportunity to make reborn, relegitimize and deepen the process of construction of the European Union.

The chapter briefly analysis issues such as the constitutional meaning of Brexit, European citizenship, economic integration, mobility of workers, financial markets, the European social model, the problem of Euratom and international trade in the Brexit context.

Member of CIDEEFF – School of Law, University of Lisbon, Alameda da Universidade, Lisbon, Portugal. Professor at the School of Law of the University of Lisbon (www.fd.ulisboa.pt). Coordinator of a Jean Monnet module in International and European Public Procurement. Vice-President of the European Institute of the Law School of Lisbon. nunorodrigues@fd.ulisboa.pt

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Regulation (EU) no. 1176/2011 which details the procedure to detect and correct macroeconomic imbalances and Regulation (EU) no. 1174/2011 which lays down an enforcement mechanism. This mechanism culminates with financial sanctions for euro area countries which do not comply with the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP) recommendations made at EU level to remedy their excessive imbalance.

    Concerning the Economic and Monetary Union, see NUNO CUNHA RODRIGUES and JOSÉ RENATO GONCALVES, The European Union and the banking Economic and Monetary Union: the puzzle is yet to be completed, in NAZARÉ DA COSTA CABRAL; JOSÉ RENATO GONÇALVES and NUNO CUNHA RODRIGUES, The Euro and the crisis—perspectives for the Eurozone as a monetary and budgetary union, Springer, 2017, pp. 271–288.

  2. 2.

    See PEDRO MAGALHÃES, “The ‘Science’ in Political Science” in AP Ribeiro (ed.), The Urgency of Theory, Carcanet Press, Manchester, 2007, p. 214.

  3. 3.

    Analysing Brexit from a global perspective, see MASSIMO LA TORRE, El Brexit and her misery del global constitutionalism, in El Cronista del Social Democratic State y Derecho, n. 64, 2016, pp. 4–11.

  4. 4.

    In a certain way, it could be said that the project of European integration was not sustainable with the inclusion of the United Kingdom. In this sense, see ANNETTE BONGARDT and FRANCISCO TORRES, Brexit: a European perspective, Brotéria, Lisbon, number 182, 2016, pp. 451–470, available at http://broteria.pt/revista-broteria/artigos/139-maiojunho-2016-brexit-uma-perspectiva-europeia (last accessed on 20 June 2017).

  5. 5.

    See J.N. CUNHA RODRIGUES, A propos European Citizenship: the Right to move and reside freely, in Constitutionalizing the US judicial system, Hart Publishing, 2012, pp. 201–213.

  6. 6.

    See PHILIP LARKIN, The Limits to European Social Citizenship in the United Kingdom, in Modern Law Review, vol. 68, 2005, pp. 435–447.

  7. 7.

    See SWATI DHINGRA, GIANMARCO OTTAVIANO, THOMAS SAMPSON and JOHN VAN REENEN, The consequences of Brexit for UK trade and living standards, CEP BREXIT ANALYSIS number 2, London School of Economics, p. 2, available at http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/brexit02.pdf (last accessed on 20 June 2017).

  8. 8.

    See SWATI DHINGRA, GIANMARCO OTTAVIANO, THOMAS SAMPSON and JOHN VAN REENEN, The consequences of Brexit for UK trade and living standards, CEP BREXIT ANALYSIS number 2, London School of Economics, p. 4, available at http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/brexit02.pdf (last accessed on 20 June 2017).

  9. 9.

    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 proclaims this in Article 13, paragraphs 1 and 2. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966 makes reference to this in detail. The Council of Europe attached particular importance to it in the European Convention on Human Rights of 13 December 1955 and on Protocol no. 4 of 16 September 1963 and in the European Agreement on Regulations governing the Movement of Persons between Member States of the Council of Europe of 13 December 1957.

  10. 10.

    See Articles 6 and 7 of the Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States.

  11. 11.

    Reflections of Brexit in social representations are absorbed faster by young people and have a considerable symbolic and contagious coefficient. Several media reported that between June 2016 and March 2017, British universities registered a fall of 9% in student enrolment from other member countries of the European Union.

  12. 12.

    See the report made by Capital Economics for Woodford Investment Management, The Economic Impact of ‘Brexit’, February 2016, available at https://woodfordfunds.com/economic-impact-brexit-report/ (last accessed on 20 June 2017).

  13. 13.

    See GEORGES SITBON, Brexit: quel impact pour l’union et son marché financier?, 27 Novembre 2016, available at https://fr.linkedin.com/pulse/brexit-quel-impact-pour-lunion-et-son-march%C3%A9-financier-georges-sitbon (last accessed on 20 June 2017).

  14. 14.

    See point 8.30. of the Policy paper “The United Kingdom’s exit from, and new partnership with, the European Union”, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-united-kingdoms-exit-from-and-new-partnership-with-the-european-union-white-paper/the-united-kingdoms-exit-from-and-new-partnership-with-the-european-union--2 (last accessed on 20 June 2017).

  15. 15.

    See ENRICO NANO and SIMONE TAGLIAPIETRA, Brexit goes nuclear: The consequences of leaving Euratom, available at http://bruegel.org/2017/02/brexit-goes-nuclear-the-consequences-of-leaving-euratom/ (last accessed on 20 June 2017).

  16. 16.

    Concerning the new EU Trade and Investment strategy, see NUNO CUNHA RODRIGUES, The use of public procurement as a non-tariff barrier: relations between the EU and the BRICS in the context of the new EU trade and Investment Strategy, in Public Procurement Law Review, 2017, number 3, pp. 135–149.

  17. 17.

    The ECJ added that it is in respect of only two aspects of the agreement that the EU is not endowed with exclusive competence, namely in the field of non-direct foreign investment (“portfolio” investments made without any intention to influence the management and control of an undertaking) and the regime governing dispute settlement between investors and States. See Opinion 2/15, of 16 May 2017.

  18. 18.

    See European Commission COM (2017) 2025 of 1 March 2017. Available at http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-385_en.htm (last accessed on 20 June 2017).

References

  • Bongardt, Annette, and Francisco Torres. 2016. Brexit: A European Perspective. Brotéria, Lisbon, 182: 451–470. Available at http://broteria.pt/revista-broteria/artigos/139-maiojunho-2016-brexit-uma-perspectiva-europeia. Last accessed 20 June 2017.

  • Dhingra, Swati, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Thomas Sampson, and John van Reenen. The Consequences of Brexit for UK Trade and Living Standards, CEP BREXIT ANALYSIS number 2, London School of Economics, 2. Available at http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/brexit02.pdf. Last accessed 20 June 2017.

  • La Torre, Massimo. 2016. El Brexit and Her Misery del Global Constitutionalism, in El Cronista del Social Democratic State y Derecho, n. 64, pp. 4–11.

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  1. Law School of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Nuno Cunha Rodrigues

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  1. Nuno Cunha Rodrigues
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. CIDEEFF - School of Law, Univ of Lisbon, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    Nazaré da Costa Cabral

  2. CIDEEFF, University of Lisbon School of Law - Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Lisboa, Alameda da Universidade - Cidade Universitária, Lisbon, Portugal

    José Renato Gonçalves

  3. CIDEEFF, University of Lisbon School of Law - Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Lisboa, Alameda da Universidade - Cidade Universitária, Lisbon, Portugal

    Nuno Cunha Rodrigues

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Rodrigues, N.C. (2017). Brexit and the Future of the EU: Move Back or Move Forward?. In: da Costa Cabral, N., Renato Gonçalves, J., Cunha Rodrigues, N. (eds) After Brexit. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66670-9_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66670-9_4

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