Delivered as part of ‘The evolution of UK regulatory policy in retrospect: What has worked well? What hasn’t? What can be learned from experience?’, Annual Competition and Regulation Conference 2016
Delivered as part of ‘The evolution of UK regulatory policy in retrospect: What has worked well? What hasn’t? What can be learned from experience?’, Annual Competition and Regulation Conference 2016
In discourse following the UK referendum on 23 June 2016 significant attention has been paid
to the question What does Brexit mean? The answer seems to be straightforward: it means
UK exit from the EU, which requires UK withdrawal from the EU Treaty.
A much more important and challenging question is What next? Central to evaluation of the
options available is another question, a question about the meaning of words: What does the
expression free movement of persons mean? Put more specifically: What conditions need to
be satisfied in order to be able to say that free movement of persons has been established?
The UK is currently a Contracting Party to the European Economic Area (EEA) Agreement, and exit from the EU does not necessarily imply exit from the Single Market (i.e. withdrawal from the Agreement). Exit from the EEA would require that extra steps be taken, either unilaterally by the UK or by the other Contracting Parties to the Agreement.
There is no explicit provision in the Agreement for the UK to cease to be a Contracting Party other than by unilateral, voluntary withdrawal, which requires simply the giving of twelve months’ notice in writing (Article 127). A commonly held assumption that only EU and EFTA members can be Parties to the EEA Agreement – and hence that the UK has to be a member of one or other of these two organisations to be in the Single Market – is not well grounded, although UK consideration of an application for EFTA membership is an option well worth exploring in its own right.
Delivered as part of ‘Issues in market and regulatory governance’, Annual Westminster Conference 2016
Delivered as part of ‘Issues in market and regulatory governance’, Annual Westminster Conference 2016
Delivered as part of ‘Issues in market and regulatory governance’, Annual Westminster Conference 2016
Delivered as part of ‘Issues in market and regulatory governance’, Annual Westminster Conference 2016
Delivered as part of ‘Issues in market and regulatory governance’, Annual Westminster Conference 2016
Delivered as part of ‘Issues in market and regulatory governance’, Annual Westminster Conference 2016