Armin Cuyvers speaks in Sydney on reconciling political drama and legal realities in Brexit
On 18 October, Armin Cuyvers, Associate Professor of European Law at the Europa Instituut, spoke at the Law School of Sydney University on reconciling political drama and legal realities in Brexit.
In his presentation, Armin stressed that, as political rhetoric has to be transformed into legally and practically workable treaties soon, we need to move beyond tautologies as Brexit means Brexit. Based on his Brexit research, Armin’s presentation first gave a brief overview of the main obstacles and legal challenges facing Brexit. For example, how to legally arrange an orderly exit, with or without a transition period, how to retain sufficient market access without the UK remaining in the EU internal market, how to ensure effective enforcement and compliance without full jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, how to respect the rights of EU and UK citizens, or how to prevent a hard Northern-Irish border? Subsequently, he discussed some of the options being floated to prevent a ‘hard Brexit’, which does exist and unfortunately is becoming an increasingly realistic scenario.
The presentation was followed by a debate on Brexit, also focusing on the Australian perspective.