On 10 December 2018, in Wightman and Others (C-621/18), the Court of Justice of the EU rendered its judgment on the unilateral revocation of a notification of an intention to withdraw from the EU under Article 50 TEU.
After the British Prime Minister notified the European Council on 29 March 2017 of the UK’s intention to leave the EU under Article 50 TEU, several members of the UK, Scottish and European Parliament lodged a petition for judicial review so as to determine whether the notification could be unilaterally revoked by the UK. The UK Court of Session referred this question to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling. Due to the exceptional urgency, the President of the Court of Justice granted the Court of Session’s request for the expedited procedure.
In its reasoning, the Court firstly pointed out the two objectives of Article 50 TEU, namely enshrining the sovereign right of Member States to withdraw from the EU and establishing a procedure to do so in an orderly fashion. Due to the sovereign nature of the right to withdraw from the EU, the notification of a Member State’s intention to leave can be withdrawn as long as no withdrawal agreement has entered into force or in case of no such agreement, until the two-year period or any possible extension as foreseen by Article 50 has expired.
The Court continued that, as no provision governs the revocation of the notification of the intention to withdraw, the same rules should apply to the revocation of the notification as to the withdrawal itself. The Court therefore held that a Member State can unilaterally withdraw the notification, in accordance with the constitutional requirements of that Member State.
Lastly, the Court stressed that a Member State cannot be forced to leave the European Union against its will, such that the unilateral sovereign right to revoke the notification cannot be turned into a conditional right subject to the approval of the European Council. This is in opposition to what the Commission and Council proposed.
Please contact Pierre de Bandt for further information on this case and/or for general legal advice relating to Brexit.