Brexit: après May, le déluge. EPC Discussion Paper, 12 April 2017

Now that Article 50 has officially been triggered, the process of untangling the UK from the European Union can begin in earnest. In her letter to Donald Tusk, Mrs May asked for “a deep and special partnership” between Britain and Europe, and promised to come forward in due course with “detailed proposals for deep, broad and dynamic cooperation”. Although there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding those proposals and what the future relationship between the UK and the EU will look like, some elements are coming into focus. In this Discussion Paper, Andrew Duff looks at the latest developments in the Brexit saga, and discusses the different aspects of the upcoming Brexit process, including the debate on possible rescinding Article 50, the European Council and the European Parliament’s guidelines for the negotiations, the legacy of EU citizenship, the fate of the UK’s financial contributions to the EU, the future of that new ‘deep and special partnership’, how to manage the transition gracefully, and potential loose ends that will need to be tied up