Things We Lost in the Fire: Eu Constitutionalism After Brexit

• Autor(a) principal: Martins, Patrícia Fragoso
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.34632/catolicalawreview.2018.1997

It is said that Brexit is irreversible. The perspective of withdrawal by the United Kingdom of the European Union represents the most significant institutional challenge for the European project. It is feared that withdrawal dramatically changes the nature of European integration. Article 50 TEU is, as a rule, considered to be an emblematic manifestation of the intergovernmental nature of EU cooperation, contrasting with the trend towards a more perfect form of federal integration. Yet the exact legal and political consequences flowing from Brexit remain unknown. In any case, it is clear that the process involves more than the loss of one Member State. The trust on an ever-growing project grounded on the socalled “spill-over” effects seems compromised. Notwithstanding, at the same time, Brexit represents a unique opportunity for the affirmation of the core values of EU constitutionalism. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on how withdrawal reinforces the constitutional nature of the Union under whose lens it necessarily needs to be assessed and negotiated.