Art. 50 TUE - How to understand the ‘right’ of the Member State to Withdraw from the European Union?

This chapter focuses on legal aspects, respectively the constitutional assumptions of the departure of the Member State from the European Union. It offers an analysis of past debates and theoretical models that preceded the official introduction of the exit clause in today’s Article 50 TEU. It also addresses the question of the nature of the withdrawal and casts doubt on the nature of the “right to withdraw.” Article 50 is working with two alternatives on how to leave the Union—a consensual exit and unilateral withdrawal. Although the authors accept the theoretical extreme possibility of unilateral exit without agreement, they also point to the factual necessity of the agreement (that is necessary from the point of view of legal certainty, economic stability, political accountability, and international status of the outgoing state), which in fact makes the consensual exit the only possible way of terminating membership and therefore casts doubts on the existence of right to withdraw.