Negotiating Brexit: the European Parliament between participation and influence

ABSTRACT

Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon gives the European Parliament (EP) the power to consent on the terms of the withdrawal agreement between the exiting state and the EU. As Brexit is the first case where art. 50 has been invoked, the role of the EP in such a procedure is uncharted territory. This article assesses to what extent the EP has contributed to the Brexit negotiations until November 2018. Drawing on official documentation and thirteen original interviews with EU policy-makers, it maps the Parliament’s organisational adaptation to prepare itself for the challenge. Through its steering group and coordinator, and by carefully issuing resolutions, the EP has managed to become a ‘quasi-negotiator’. More difficult to detect is the EP’s actual influence, as its preferences were closely aligned to those of the other EU institutions. Overall, the EP had a selective attention in the process, primarily focusing on citizens’ rights.

KEYWORDS:

• Article 50
• Brexit
• consent
• European Parliament
• empowerment
• influence

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, Amie Kreppel, who kindly agreed to serve as discussant, and all participants to the panel “Power without Influence? Explaining the Impact of the EP beyond Legislation” at the ECPR SGEU Conference, Sciences Po Paris, on 13–15 June 2018. They provided insightful comments which very much improved the quality of the paper. We are also grateful for the time our interviewees took out to contribute to this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Interviews

1. Permanent Representation, Brexit team, 18 July 2017.

2. Permanent Representation, 18 July 2017.

3. Permanent Representation, art. 50 Working group, 20 July 2017.

4. European Parliament, Senior administrator, ALDE group, 23 April 2018.

5. European Parliament, Administrators (research), 7 May 2018.

6. Permanent Representation, art. 50 Working group, 7 May 2018.

7. American Chamber of Commerce, Brussels office, 7 May 2018.

8. Permanent Representation, art. 50 Working group, 7 May 2018.

9. Permanent Representation, art. 50 Working group, 8 May 2018.

10. European Parliament, Senior administrator, 8 May 2018.

11. Confederation of British Industry, Brussels office, 8 May 2018.

12. Permanent Representation, EP team, 8 May 2018.

13. European Parliament, Administrator (Committee), 4 June 2018.

Notes

1. Rule 82 of the EP’s Rules of Procedure.

2. See Corbett, Jacobs, and Neville (2016) and Ripoll Servent (2018) for an overview of the policies concerned.

3. After the transmission of the UK letter opening the Art. 50 procedure nine British MEPs left the Parliament. They were either elected to the House of Commons (four) or appointed life peers (two). As it is not uncommon for MEPs from other member states to leave the EP after being elected to their national parliament (e.g. recently in the case of Germany, Sweden and France) it would be tenuous to assert that these British MEPs would otherwise have stayed in the EP. Just a few of them might have decided to quit for reasons indirectly related to Brexit, e.g. to start or maintain a professional career elsewhere.

4. British MEP Richard Corbett had actively participated in the drafting of Parliament’s first Brexit resolution of 5 April 2017. When the ad-hoc body formally became the Brexit Steering Group he was replaced by Roberto Gualtieri. Apparently, the S&D leadership felt that it would be difficult to have a British MEP in such a high-profile position during negotiations on Brexit.

5. In what is called the “enlarged Brexit Steering Group format”.

6. These four resolutions are: the resolution on negotiations following the UK’s notification that it intends to withdraw from the EU (5 April 2017); the resolution on the state of play of negotiations with the UK (3 October 2017); the resolution on the state of play of negotiations with the UK (13 December 2017); the resolution on the framework of the future EU-UK relationship (14 March 2018).

7. Pedro Lopez de Pablo, EPP spokesman, quoted in Politico, 28 March 2017.

8. See Michael Barnier, speaking after the third round of negotiations: “I suggest that nobody underestimates the role of the European Parliament”, quoted in Politico, 1 September 2017.

9. Specifically, 21 issues over a total of 61.

10. Cf. the conclusions of the BSG on 15 October 2018. The Conference of Presidents on 12 December 2018, further to the uncertainties in the approval of the deal at Westminster, reiterated: “without the backstop […] Parliament would not give its consent”.

11. Quoted in Politico, 21 December 2018.

Additional information

Funding

The work of Nicola Chelotti was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/R001847/1], and part of the project ‘28+ Perspectives on Brexit: a guide to the multi-stakeholder negotiations’.