30 months after the UK referendum, what conclusions can we draw about Brexit in particular and the process of trying to quit the EU in general? A thread. in 15 parts. @CER_EU /1
European integration - in the old sense of a new treaty every few years that transfers powers to the EU - has stopped. Sure, it had more-or-less stopped before June 2016, but that vote reminded leaders that it would be impossible to get a new treaty ratified in every EU state. /2
Leaving the EU is like joining it. In 'accession talks' both sides pretend to negotiate. In fact EU sets the terms and the candidate either takes them or doesn't join. When a country wants out, it sets its red lines and the EU decides the deal. Only details are discussed. /3
That is because Art 50 gives the EU nearly all the cards. The departing country has to leave 2 years after invoking Art 50, and leaving without a deal would be disastrous; so it has strong incentives to swallow the deal. /4
But the departing country will be especially weak in the negotiation if it a) makes tactical mistakes, like invoking Art 50 before it knows what it wants; & then takes 2 years to produce a plan for the future relationship - 'Chequers', which for the EU was too little too late. /5
And b) the government is badly divided over what it wants in the negotiation. Often the PM, ministers and officials would say different things to the EU. Yet on the other side the EU was united and therefore strong. /6
And c) the country's political class, including key ministers, is supremely ignorant of how the EU works and thinks. This damaged UK credibility. Even the PM was saying a year ago that a future trade agreement could be completed pre-Brexit, disregarding expert advice. /7
Meanwhile we have learned that the EU's priorities are Principles - 4 freedoms are indivisible, no 3rd country can have as close a relationship to EU as a member; Precedent - if UK got a special deal as a non-member (eg half in single mkt), others (eg Switz) would ask for same;/8
And Politics. The world must see that Brexit carries costs, pour decourager les autres. Hence the EU's insistence that the future relationship must not give the UK frictionless trade. Those 'three Ps' have sometimes militated against pragmatism from the EU. /9
The EU's thinking on Brexit is not driven by economics. Few of the key figures on the EU side are economists focused on maximising future trade and investment. They think the principles and the politics matter more than a bit of lost trade. /10
Nor are many of they key EU people experts on foreign, defence or security policy. In that area of the future relationship, the EU has sought to hold the UK at arms length, rather than create special structures to allow the Brits to plug in. /11
Given that future relationship has yet to be negotiated, EU may yet soften in this area. There are senior ministers in EU govts (not responsible for Brexit talks) who argue that geopolitcally the EU needs v close ties to the Brits post-Brexit, because of their capabilities. /12
Another country leaving the EU won't have to grapple with the Irish border. But once May had agreed in Dec 17 that, for the sake of the peace process, there shouldn't be a hard border between NI & the Republic, NI had to have some sort of regulatory union with the EU. /13
On that issue, the EU showed (rare) flexibility by agreeing, in Nov 18, somewhat reluctantly, to May's demand for an all-UK customs union with the EU, to reduce the need for checks across Irish Sea (not that that helped May with her own party). /14
Finally, the big lesson of Brexit is that any country trying to leave will find the process much more complicated, difficult and expensive than anyone imagined. The Brits have probably inoculated others against trying to pursue the same path for at least a generation. /15 ENDS
