EU Accession from Within? An Introduction

Summary:

The entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon has seen Member States acquire the formal right to withdraw from the European Union (EU), following the procedure outlined in new Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). The perpetual nature of the Treaties, the on-going process of ever-closer European integration, and the judicially declared irrevocability of the transfer of sovereignty from the Member States to the EU gave rise to warranted doubts, prior to the advent of the Treaty of Lisbon, as to the existence of any Member State right to withdraw from the EU.

The aim of this article is to examine the EU law-related issues arising from a secession scenario. The article examines the possibility of an ‘internal EU enlargement’, with an emphasis on the potential existence of a ‘right to automatic accession to the EU’. There is, as a matter of EU law, no automatic right to EU accession in a genuine secession scenario.

The paper also explores the issue of the existence of a ‘right to automatic accession to the European Monetary Union (EMU)’ for newly created state entities that were formerly part of a euro area Member State.