THE EMERGENCE OF EU WITHDRAWAL LAW

"EU withdrawal law" has become a sub-field of EU law. Now that the dust of the first withdrawal of a Member State from the EU is slowly settling, one can take a step back and analyse "withdrawal law" in a more comprehensive fashion. Its main characteristics reveal the extensive, and largely exclusive, role of the EU as such in the process of negotiating and concluding both a withdrawal agreement and a future trade deal. This reflects the procedure, which may not have been given too much attention when it was included in the Treaty, but which formed the basis for extensive subsequent institutional and scholarly interpretation. EU withdrawal law reveals not only that Member States wishing to leave the Union have to follow strict rules and procedures, but also that these rules and procedures partly remain relevant after the actual withdrawal.