A perpetual transition would be politically unacceptable... and conflict with EU law. It would, therefore, need an exit mechanism.
- Kenneth Armstrong
For some time now, both the United Kingdom and European Union have agreed that once the UK ceases to be a Member State on 29 March 2019, it will enter into a ‘stand-still’ period – during which the UK will continue to be bound by its existing EU obligations.
The rationale behind this is to avoid a ‘cliff-edge’ departure that would see tariffs and regulatory controls imposed on cross-border trade between the UK and the EU.
To the extent there has been disagreement between the two sides it has been on terminology – the EU refers to this as a ‘transition period’ while the UK insists on calling it an ‘implementation period’ – and duration – the UK sought a two-year period whereas the EU was only willing to agree a transition that would end on 31 December 2020 (coinciding with the end of the current budgetary ‘multi-annual framework’). The UK agreed to the EU’s offer of a transition ending in December 2020.
However, the duration of the transition period has come back to the fore of the negotiations for two reasons.
The UK believes that the issue of how to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland can only properly be resolved in the context of the negotiations on the future economic relationship. The UK had hoped that this might be negotiated in parallel with the withdrawal arrangements.
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge