,
12 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
Interesting question for extending article 50: how do the elections for the European Parliaments limit extension in fact (not in law) (short thread) theguardian.com/politics/2019/…
In law Art. 50(3) of the TEU does not mention a limit to the capacity to extend the Brexit deadline 
In fact there are things that make UK membership beyond certain deadlines with the UK leaving afterwards problematic: think of the multi-year financial framework, but the case in point is: elections to the European Parliament.
The elections themselves are at the end of May, the first session of the Parliament is in July (as I learned from the article).
Let’s start with the easy question first: an extension until the May election date should not cause too many technical problems. What about until after July?
The article cites an “EU diplomat” to say things in the EU are not black or white. Now if I understand journo speech this could be a Member State diplomat. Right @DanielBoffey? IMHO this diplomat is wrong. Very much so. What do I mean?
@DanielBoffey Under Art. 20, 22 TFEU citizens of the EU have the right to vote for the EP. If there’s no election in the UK, this right is taken away. Will there be lawsuits? You bet.
@DanielBoffey Extending the deadline beyond July without organising EP elections in the UK is thus deeply problematic. That does seem to be black and white. What about that grey area between May and July, between elections and the EP’s first session?
@DanielBoffey At a first glance my understanding is that this might save the embarrassment of having UK candidates who then don’t take their seats, but it still runs into a right to vote issue.
@DanielBoffey Now there is some case-law relating to Gibraltar, but I am not sure this would resolve the issue at all. So my call is: up to May. May to July is very difficult, after July you would need to organise elections.
@DanielBoffey The source “EU diplomat” does not mean too much, given that it could be a national diplomat without actual EU experience. I find that curious, but apparently that is how to interpret the term.
@DanielBoffey So take away: extension beyond election date means EP elections in the UK. EuCo has left the door open to such an extension by providing for the possibility that UK MEPs will be elected. Art. 3(2) of the attached decision h/t @colmanareilly data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/S…
