In an new Institute of European Law Working Paper 2/2021, Professor Wolfgang Weiss from the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer provides a critical evaluation on the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
The Northern Ireland Protocol to the Withdrawal Agreement (NI Protocol) has already demonstrated the difficulties of implementing a low-functioning, complex set of rules; it has triggered disagreements between the parties and gives rise to ongoing disputes and demands for treaty changes. Given this current backdrop to EU-UK trade relations, the question of whether the TCA will lead to a lasting stabilisation of EU-UK trade and political relations or whether, like the NI Protocol, it will be more of a treaty that continues to cause disputes due to its incompleteness, although perhaps not to the same extent as the NI Protocol, becomes relevant. The Working Paper offers a thought-provoking perspective of one of the central elements of the Brexit process - and a perspective from outside the United Kingdom at that. The Working Paper is based on the Institute of European Law Annual Lecture 2021 delivered on 9th December. The Institute of European Law Working Paper series has published now 27 Working Papers on European law and policy since 2016.