EU lawyers tell ECJ Article 50 cannot be unilaterally revoked
Blow for anti-Brexit campaigners led by a group of Scottish MPs and MEPs
The EU’s top lawyers have said the UK’s decision to leave the bloc cannot be unilaterally withdrawn, in a blow for anti-Brexit campaigners.
In a hearing at the European Court of Justice to decide whether the EU’s exit clause can be cancelled by the UK, lawyers from the European Council and Commission insisted that European government had to unanimously agree to any move from Britain to reverse its decision to leave the EU.
The case is being heard after anti-Brexit campaigners led by a group of Scottish MPs and MEPs, have argued that the “Article 50” process can be cancelled by the British government without any approval from the rest of the EU. Today’s hearing in Luxembourg was referred to the ECJ by Scotland’s highest court.
Hubert Legal, the European Council’s top lawyer, insisted that unlike the voluntary decision to trigger Article 50, cancelling it would require the unanimous support from all 27 governments in order to protect the interests of the EU as a whole.
“There is no parallelism between the right to notify and the right to take back”, said Mr Legal. “National processes cannot suffice to pull the carpet on which everyone has been forced to stand on,” he said.
The crux of the EU’s argument is that allowing a government to cancel the exit process would encourage member states to abuse the process in order to gain concessions from the bloc on better terms of membership.
In such a situation, the two-year clock that is started under Article 50 would be transformed from a process to organise a country’s exit, into a negotiation to “charm the notifying sheep back to the flock” on terms that would weaken the EU project, said Mr Legal.
Anti-Brexit campaigners are hoping a decision in their favour would influence UK MPs to reject Theresa May’s withdrawal deal and ultimately reverse Brexit.
But it is unlikely that the ECJ will issue any final verdict before the House of Commons “meaningful vote” on December 11.
During the case, the UK government said the case was purely “hypothetical” as it had no intentions to cancel the Article 50 process and stay in the EU. It said the petitioners were seeking to use the ECJ to get “political ammunition to pressure the UK parliament”.
“Pandora was given a large box on her wedding which she was told not to open”, said Lord Keen of Elie, QC for the UK government. “We respectfully plead the court should not open this box”.