Talk:Withdrawal from the European Union

East Timor

an IP has raised the issue of whether East Timor was de jure part of the EU or not. Now I seem to remember, as the article states, that it was excluded however I looked at the accession treaty and it makes no reference either way.- _J.Logan`^t: 11:16, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Propsal for removal of a phrase

I propose the removal of the phrase which reads "The majority of Britons now favour withdrawal[1]". On the grounds that the poll was not at all large enough to make such a conclusion. this page shows how many were polled, and it states that only 1'000 were polled, this is roughly 0,001% of the total populace, and not at all enough. --Île flottɑnte~Floɑting islɑnd ^Talk 21:49, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

That is a normal sample size for polls. You could put "according to polls..." before it if it really concerns you but it is valid.- _J.Logan`^t: 08:18, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Withdrawal procedure

Doesn't international law explicitly hold that any nation can immediately and unilaterally withdraw from any treaty? Thus, if a nation wanted to skip the withdrawal procedure and leave immediately, wouldn't there be nothing the EU could do about it? 75.76.213.106 (talk) 06:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the short answer is: no. There would be little point in making treaties if any party could unilaterally decide not to honour them with impunity. But, of course, it is a bit more complicated. --Boson (talk) 13:42, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes and No. It is very complicated due to the half-way integration of the EU and conflicting legal interpretations. Long essay short though, I'd say yes (check out TEU Art. 50). But they'd use this procedure in order to make it orderly as states are heavily tied into the EU and they'd only hurt themselves by making it a brutal exit.- _J.Logan`^t: 22:59, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

PS: Since the question uses the words "any nation" and "any treaty", I presume it implicitly refers to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Article 56 of which states

A treaty which contains no provision regarding its termination and which does not provide for denunciation or withdrawal is not subject to denunciation or withdrawal unless: (a) it is established that the parties intended to admit the possibility of denunciation or withdrawal; or (b) a right of denunciation or withdrawal may be implied by the nature of the treaty. A party shall give not less than twelve months’ notice of its intention to denounce or withdraw from a treaty . . .

--Boson (talk) 00:21, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I did say long essay short and I don't think an academic debate on the matter would be fruitful but I'd say the question centres around when a treaty becomes a constitution and where the power of the treaties originate. However Article 50, paragraph 1, does spell out quite clearly the right to withdraw, even if procedure is then elaborated on. If the right is stated as clearly as that then I doubt it could be suppressed if a state wished to leave without following the full procedure (for instance, if they think it was being artificially protracted).- _J.Logan`^t: 08:11, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I think we are answering two different questions. The first question suggests (erroneously) that international law permits any party to any treaty to withdraw immediately. I don't know where this view came from, but it came up occasionally before Lisbon. The Lisbon Treaty appears to permit withdrawal without any further serious negotiations, by merely waiting the two years, but that would be a real can of worms.--Boson (talk) 15:19, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

More detailed analysis of effects of withdrawal ?

Given the current hysteria in the UK, it would be interesting if some experts could list some of the possible effects of withdrawing from the EU. Perhaps with respect to the following areas:

• Common agriculture policy
• Fisheries and shared resources
• Free movement of EU citizens through the EU
• Right of EU citizens to reside in an EU member state
• Right of EU citizens to access another member states welfare systems

My understanding is that were the UK to withdraw, then all EU citizens living in the UK could be required to leave, and any non-UK citizens claiming welfare would no longer be eligible. But how would this factor into UK domestic law ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheNoBrainer (talk • contribs) 12:31, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Withdrawal for new members

From the first source in the article (its abstract): "unilateral withdrawal would undoubtedly be legally controversial; that, while permissible, a recently enacted exit clause is, prima facie, not in harmony with the rationale of the European unification project and is otherwise problematic, mainly from a legal perspective;" and the text of this page it seems you can withdraw, but would have to wait at most 2 year, right? If this is a non-member now (let's say Iceland), and would join and want to end it later would the same apply to Iceland as older members? comp.arch (talk) 15:05, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Translations/other language articles

Hi, anyone here who could create German, Polish, Portuguese, Greek and other language versions? Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 13:45, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Parties which think about an EU withdrawal (closed)

We have a section entitled "Parties which think about an EU withdrawal". I've removed nearly everything from it as no citations were given. Perhaps more problematically, I'm unclear what the heading means. Can I ask for some clarity to be added to the text if we are to keep this list? Bondegezou (talk) 21:49, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

It means, that the parties speculate about a withdrawal, but first hope to reform the EU somehow before exiting it. --80.108.153.176 (talk) 22:45, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

How does a party "speculate" about withdrawal? What does that actually mean? Are all these parties' views actually equivalent? Do they want similar reform of the EU or not? Or is this just a vague list of vaguely Eurosceptic parties? Without citations or explaining text, this is unclear and unhelpful. Meanwhile, WP:PROVEIT is crystal clear: a citation is needed for material that has been challenged. Bondegezou (talk) 07:53, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

All listed parties have following in common: "If we do not manage to reform the EU for more democracy and national rights, we withdraw from it.". It's not a listing of Anti-EU-Parties. Law and Justice e.g. is EU-critical, but wants to stay in the EU yet. --80.108.153.176 (talk) 09:19, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps you could add that explanation, along with the citations that this section requires under WP:V. Bondegezou (talk) 09:45, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh, there are countless of'em. But I can see, that you've deleted some parties, because they "do not support leaving the EU". And that's exactly the point: they don't support it yet (otherwise they would be listed in the paragraph above), but meanwhile want only to leave the Euro and reform the EU. --80.108.153.176 (talk) 10:26, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I searched around and could see nothing to suggest those parties were even thinking about an EU withdrawal, only discussion about those parties' views on leaving the Eurozone. This is why we need reliable source citations to be given in each case. We cannot have material in Wikipedia based merely on your say-so. If there are "countless" citations, then it won't take you long to find and add them.

WP:PROVEIT is very clear. If you want material in an article, the onus is on you to provide supporting evidence. Verifiability is a basic pillar of how Wikipedia works.Bondegezou (talk) 12:29, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

The material was already there. For months. You wanna delete it, so you have to look for sources which state the parties think or don't think about an EU Withdrawal. Note, that you are the only user who wants to have them removed and note, that many of the parties in the paragraph above also aren't cited. --80.108.153.176 (talk) 14:04, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I refer you and User:TheHeroWolf to WP:V, which is Wikipedia policy. I quote: "All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution."

And: "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source."

Wikipedia policy is unambiguous here. If material in an article is challenged, the onus is on those who want to keep it to demonstrate verifiability.

I have tried myself to look through the parties concerned. I have added a cite for one party, the UK Conservative Party. Two others, I looked but couldn't find anything to support their inclusion, so I removed them, but User:80.108.153.176 just added them straight back in.

If there are other parts of the article without supporting citations, then I would like to see those either removed or, preferably, citations found in support. My particular concern with this section is that it is less clear what it means and, thus, harder to make a simple decision whether a party should be in or out.Bondegezou (talk) 16:51, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

I also note that much of this material has not been here "For months." 6 of the 17 parties listed were added in the last month. The section itself was only created on 5 March: [1]. Bondegezou (talk) 17:22, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Maybe you don't know it, but we have July. That means, the paragraph is there for months. --TheHeroWolf (talk) 20:41, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

Note, I have started a related discussion at Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Withdrawal_from_the_European_Union. Bondegezou (talk) 13:39, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Why do you tell me that? You know, that I already knew it before. I suggest you look onto the data, when what was written. --TheHeroWolf (talk) 16:39, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

List of political parties

To expand on the discussion above, Section 3.2 of this article has two lists of parties, one on "Parties which advocate for withdrawal from the EU" and a second on "Parties seeking reform of the EU and considering withdrawal if other options are exhausted". The more I consider this section, the more I feel it is a bad idea in general. It comes across to me as the sort of badly-maintained, context-free list that gives Wikipedia a bad name. I see 4 problems in particular:

1. WP:CFORK: much the same content is covered in the Euroscepticism article, and it is covered better there because that article doesn't just present a bald list, but explains and gives context. As we know, having the same sort of content in two places on Wikipedia is generally a bad idea: it is better to focus our efforts on one good quality article. So, I suggest dropping these lists and replacing them with a link to Euroscepticism.

2. WP:NPOV: this is a list of parties supporting withdrawal from the EU, but of course other parties -- indeed many more parties -- oppose EU withdrawal and these get no mention here. This is not an unbiased presentation. At least, we should have some explanatory text here explaining that context.

3. WP:UNDUE: this list lumps everything together. We've got, for example, the UK Conservative Party, the governing party, and then we've got the National Independent Party (Ireland) and National Movement (Poland), tiny parties that have never won an election. Just sticking everything willy-nilly into one list gives undue weight to minor parties. At least, we should have some sort of threshold for inclusion (e.g. representation in the national legislature).

4. WP:SYNTH: the first list is pretty clear, but the second section lumps together a diverse set of positions. Trying to describe the UK Conservatives' position on the EU is difficult: heaven knows, we have many column inches every week in the British press trying to work out exactly what it is! All these parties in the second list have equally nuanced and different views. Trying to group them together on the basis of what they believe about a hypothetical situation (they are only considering EU withdrawal if other options are exhausted) is misleading. That sort of complexity is better described in prose, as in the Euroscepticism article. At least, I propose dropping this second list.

In conclusion, we have a list with far too few citations that doesn't work for multiple reasons, and we have an existing article, Euroscepticism, that covers the same material better, so let's drop all this and just have a link to that. What do others think? Bondegezou (talk) 21:55, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

First, NPOV is only violated by you. Why do you say "of course" (as EU brings nothing good) and if you look e.g. to England or Poland, most parties are Anti-EU (which does not mean, they want immediately a withdrawal), and that's "of course". It are simply facts. Most parties in Europe are Anti-EU, but even if not, why would that be a reason not to mention the parties who speculate about withdrawal?? And why would non-winning in elections be a reason not to mention them?? They seek EU Withdrawal or a major reform or opt-outs for their nations. But as you say, you don't want they have weight, because you simply do not tolerate other opinions about the EU and wanna have your LibDem-Pro-EU-Opinion (which is anyway evil) in the article and undermine the parties who want real freedom and independence (though in fact, we Anti-EUists do not have opinions, but knowledge). Second, all that would give WP a very bad name, which you don't wanna, though it has anyway a bad name yet as WP is a non-neutral center-left pro-EUSA propaganda platform. But you may be right with the fact, that the party-lists are already better explained in the article Euroscepticism (while "Euroscepticism" is also rather a pro-EU valuating name, better would be "Eurocriticism" or "Anti-EUism") which would but not be a reason to delete the lists, but to delete this whole article and simply redirect to Euroscepticism and transfer the other information. But I would say, it's better to have two seperate articles and this one with both lists. --TheHeroWolf (talk) 08:53, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Swabia

It's ridiculous to include Swabia, a region in the South West of Germany, in the list of regions under the heading "break-up of a member state". Who ever did this is either a joker or does not have a clue.

For those who can't understand the source in German or can't make head or tail of their Google translate version: 86% of the more than 1000 readers who participated in an online survey of a provincial newspaper called Schwäbische Zeitung said that they would hand in their German passport and apply for a Swiss one; the whole thing dates back to July 2014. That's some 860 online jokers out of a population of some 2 million. And it was in reaction of some phony proposal made by some Swiss politician that didn't go anywhere and this in turn was in reaction to some OECD study on standards of living in various regions. And if you had bothered to look up Swabia you'd know that it is not even a political entity of Germany: "like many cultural regions of Europe, Swabia's borders are not clearly defined". But I guess that is the kind of information level that decides the outcome of a referendum. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:1811:522:6A00:91D2:577E:FC99:3FC2 (talk) 10:02, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Break-up of a member state - Vorarlberg

The section suggests that any desires of the population of the Austrian state of Vorarlberg to join Switzerland are or more less code for wanting to leave the European Union, which is certainly not true and it is also not supported by the linked source.

Vorarlberg is culturally rather close to Switzerland, most importantly they speak an Allemanic dialect of German, the likes of which are found in German speaking parts of Switzerland, that is not spoken anywhere else in Austria.

At the end of WWI there was a serious attempt to become part of Switzerland, and according to the source, apparently in a 2008 survey of the Austrian state broadcaster half of the people answered they would rather be part of Switzerland than Austria. Neither are there any serious political movements in Vorarlberg that want to split off from Austria, nor to secede from the European Union in one way or the other.

I want to simply delete the part, but maybe somebody wants to state more clearly what the point of the section with regards to Vorarlberg is, and maybe in a way is not as wrong as it is now. Gerald Jarosch (talk) 01:52, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Definition

I notice that this article does not begin with a definition, which might be confusing for those arriving here with little or no knowledge of the subject. The first sentence is currently:

Withdrawal from the European Union is a right of European Union (EU) member states under the Treaty on European Union (Article 50): "Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements."

Perhaps the article should begin with something like:

Withdrawal from the European Union is the legal and political process whereby a Member state of the European Union ceases to be a member of the union.

We could then cut smoothly back into the existing text by following it with something like:

Withdrawal is a right under the Treaty on European Union (Article 50): "Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements."

Any thoughts? Polly Tunnel (talk) 14:02, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

 Done as no objections raised. Polly Tunnel (talk) 14:56, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

What confusion are you expecting? Someone not knowing the meaning of the word 'withdrawal'? FNAS (talk) 13:52, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your edit which "shortened the first few sentences, which were repetitive to the point of tautology." I've added back the definition at the beginning per WP:BEGIN and left your work intact. On the subject of confusion, I am imagining a reader from a distant part of the world who knows little or nothing of the EU. "Withdrawal" is indeed an odd word in this context. The new template that has been added refers to "European Union secession", a term which has its own WP entry and which might provide us with a better title for this article. The term "independence" is commonly used by those proposing secession, while "rebellion" is often used by those opposing it. "Withdrawal" was used when this page was first created in 2006, possibly in an attempt to achieve WP:NPOV. It does have some currency within the UK, though "leave" and "exit" seem to be more common. As far as WP is concerned, withdrawal leads to a disambiguation page without a direct link to an article on political departure. It does, however, link directly to withdrawal (military) which seems to be the most common form of withdrawal in a political context. Hence we have articles on the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Someone who knows the meaning of "withdrawal" but does not know about the EU might infer that it is occupied by foreign military. The definition is intended quickly to inform the reader that we are talking about the negotiated departure of a member of a voluntary confederation.

Polly Tunnel (talk) 12:42, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Withdrawal is a common word, and the meaning is perfectly clear. Secession implies that the UK is fully absorbed into the EU, which it is not- it is a member of the EU. If you want to no longer be part of your local book club, you withdraw from it or leave it- you don't secede from it. As you say above, those proposing or opposing secession use independence and rebellion- this is not the language in whichntondescribe Brexit. Try again.

Gravuritas (talk) 14:11, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 03:17, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

German article

Cheers, this needs a German article. de:Austritt aus der Europäischen Union -- Horst-schlaemma (talk) 13:49, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• There's information about how to request page translations into English at WP:TRANSLATETOHERE. I guess you'd need to do a similar procedure on the German WP to request a page translation into German:

1. Create the article on German Wikipedia as a stub article, explaining or defining the subject of the article in a sentence or two;
2. Then immediately tag your stub article with a translation template on the new German article page. The template would need to be one from within the German WP, like the English ones found in the category Category:Expand by language Wikipedia templates.

Alternatively, if you have a Requested articles Project in the German WP like the English one that exists here you could place your request there.

Best of luck

Polly Tunnel (talk) 18:38, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Future Developments

The article says nothing about whether the withdrawal process is likely to remain much the same, be widened, narrowed or removed. I know that this can introduce speculation, but surely there are some reputable sources where this has been discussed. 86.150.161.18 (talk) 10:42, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Swedish Left Party - “Parties in the EU advocating or considering withdrawal”?

While it is technically correct that the Left Party (Sweden) want Sweden to leave the EU “as a long-term goal” (whatever that means), it just looks odd that we list them under the subsection “Parties in the EU advocating or considering withdrawal”. Because, they are not actually actively campaigning for withdrawal, they never, ever talk about it voluntarily, and if a journalist asks directly they shuffle their feet and try to get back to a more comfortable topic. In other words, all prominent Left Party politicians are clearly deeply uncomfortable with official Party policy on EU withdrawal. In such circumstances it just seems highly misleading for Wikipedia to represent them as standard-beaters for EU withdrawal.Mais oui! (talk) 01:58, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

Merge Article 50 into this article

It seems a little over the top to have two articles on withdrawal, not counting all the Brexit specific stuff. I propose Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union is merged into this article;

• They both discuss the exact same thing
• Process/procedure sections exist in both
• pre-lisbon sections exist in both
• Brexit sections exist in both
• Neither are particularly long

As for which is kept;

• "Withdrawal from the European Union" is clearer as to its topic than "Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union"
• The title is broader, not everything on Withdrawal could be comfortable on Article 50 but it would the other way around.
• There are no other EU articles titled after specific treaty articles, where as there are loads about specific concepts, so for consistency, Withdrawal wins.

Any objections? - - _J.Logan`^t: 10:38, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

• support - It makes sense as there is significant overlap. I suggest you be bold and just do it.=> Spudgfsh (Text Me!) 11:54, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Aye, you're probably right there but I wanted to be sure.- _J.Logan`^t: 19:53, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to merge other Euroexit articles into this one

Greetings, everyone. It has been suggested that "Dutch withdrawal from the European Union", "Frexit", and "Greek withdrawal from the eurozone" be merged into this article. A discussion is due on the suggestion. Your input is invited. -The Gnome (talk) 10:30, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose merging for the following reasons.

1. This article is about the general, overarching issues about withdrawal from the EU. The other articles are about subjects that possess significant, perhaps extraordinary, independent notability of their own.
2. It's telling in this context that we do not have for every EU country articles in Wikipedia about their potential withrawal from the Eurozone. Grouping them all together would create the impression whereby every EZ member contemplates an exit.
3. Withdrawal from the EU is not going to be a group withdrawal (or has not yet been shaped as such). The politics and the conditions of each country can be and actually are very different. Merging everything under one, generic- title article would be significantly misleading: every country's specific situation and considerations must be adequately presented.
4. The economic crisis in the EU is a multi-year crisis that has been taking place since 2009. We can confidently expect notable events to continue to unfold in each of the various EZ/EU countries, as well as in the EU structure and its policies as a whole. Having a single article would evidently shape a very unwieldy text, at the detriment of its encyclopaedic value, or alternatively loss of useful information.

-The Gnome (talk) 10:30, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose with particularly strong oppose to Grexit which has nothing to do with leaving the EU. This whole RtM is a diversionary tactic from the proposal to delete at least NLEXIT as a piece of blatant POV-pushing. The fact that it does not have a counterpart in nl.wikipedia tells you all you need to know. I agree with The Gnome's arguments (except that this article is about withdrawal from the European Union, not the single currency).--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:20, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks. Typo amended to avoid confusion. -The Gnome (talk) 15:50, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
• User:John Maynard Friedman, can you explain what you meant with 'a diversionary tactic'? Can't wrap my head around that one... Feer 15:12, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

The emerging consensus at talk:Nexit was that the article should be deleted as wp:FRINGE and Not WP:NOTABLE when suddenly this RtM popped up. I plead guilty to failure to WP:assume good faith and will be happy to withdraw if the outcome is to change Nexit to a simple redirect into this article. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:22, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

• Support for merging "Dutch withdrawal from the European Union" and "Frexit" into this article and oppose for mergin with Greek withdrawal from the eurozone. Either we have *exit articles for each member state where such names exist (basically all 28 of them), or we gather the information about all of them in this article and have a more general discussion about withdrawal from the EU (besides brexit). Swexit, Oexit, Itexit, Spexit, etc. are already redirected to this article. The idea to leave the EU is not new in any member state, the only thing that has changed the past years is that people have started to invent all kinds of words ending with "exit". I don't think that these words deserve separate Wikipedia articles just because of the names. --Glentamara (talk) 14:38, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Greek withdrawal from the Eurozone is unrelated. Other articles about possible withdrawals from the EU can exist for each nation where there is sufficient material. Bondegezou (talk) 18:36, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, and propose to close this discussion. First of all, adding Grexit to the mix was obviously a mistake of mine, as also pointed out by others above. Second, Nexit and Frexit are both clearly hypotheticals. Initially I proposed adding this qualification to the article titles, to make this fact clear. Then a merge with this article was proposed, and I just went with that. But... looking closer at the content of said articles, there really isn't anything there content-wise that isn't already covered in Euroscepticism. Withdrawal from the European Union already links there, so there's really no need to add more content here on either Nexit or Frexit. Feer 15:12, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: Concur with opposing comments above. Qexigator (talk) 10:26, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: Concur with opposing comments above. Leutha (talk) 16:05, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, as above. Bondegezou (talk) 17:03, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as above and concur with closing this discussion - there is almost unanimity. Wikiain (talk) 21:33, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, for all the reasons listed by The Gnome (as well as others), and also concur with closing this discussion. Oska (talk) 00:11, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Redirecting 'Lexit' is unhelpful

• Lexit redirects here, but there is no clue as to why!
• https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Lexit
• https://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2017/11/17/everything-you-need-to-know-about-lexit-in-five-minutes

--90.207.122.68 (talk) 22:41, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Lexit listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Lexit. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 23:34, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Secession from a member state

I deleted this section:

===Secession from a member state===

See also: Future enlargement of the European Union § Internal enlargement

There are no clear agreements, treaties or precedents covering the scenario of an existing EU member state breaking into two or more states. The question is whether one state is a successor rump state which remains a member of the EU and the other is a new state which must reapply and be accepted by all other member states to remain in the EU, or alternatively whether both states retain their EU membership following secession.

In some cases, a region leaving its state would leave the EU - for example, if any of the various proposals for the enlargement of Switzerland from surrounding countries were to be implemented at a future date.

During the failed Scottish independence referendum of 2014, the European Commission said that any newly independent country would be considered as a new state which would have to negotiate with the EU to rejoin, though EU experts also suggested transitional arrangements and an expedited process could apply. Political considerations are likely to have a significant influence on the process; in the case of Catalonia, for example, other EU member states may have an interest in blocking an independent Catalonia's EU membership in order to deter independence movements within their own borders.

My reason to do so is that this topic is incidental to the question of withdrawal from the EU. There is nothing to suggest that any of the territories want to secede from their current polity so that they can withdraw from the EU, indeed in the case of Scotland and Northern Ireland, the reverse is true. As far as I know, there is nothing in the Treaties that says that, if a member state divides, then one or even both must withdraw. There has been a lot of sabre rattling towards Catalunya but it is not backed up by actual EU law, So if this text is to remain in the article, it needs a convincing introductory text to say why it is relevant. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:20, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

There are plenty of citations to say that a new country created by secession from an EU member would not automatically be an EU member. Thus there is relevance here. Whether they'd want to or not, withdrawal from the EU could be a result. Bondegezou (talk) 21:29, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

How is that in any way relevant to an article about withdrawal from the EU? For this reason alone, the material belongs elsewhere, not in this article. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:05, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

All the citations that I have seen are merely assertions made in the interest of mutual solidarity, but none actually base that assertion on any specific clause of any of the Treaties of European Union. It is just so much hot air and so fails our WP:RS test (in this case).b --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:05, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

But let's for a moment extrapolate from the premise that one element of a dividing member state would retain membership but the other element would lose it (again, show me the Treaty that says that), then that outcome would be an expulsion from the EU, not a withdrawal. So again, wrong article (as well as blatant WP:SYN and WP:OR. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:05, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't see the semantic distinction you are seeking to make between expulsion and withdrawal as being useful. This article is about countries leaving the EU, whether that be by their own design or some other mechanism.

There are RS given that state a clear interpretation of the Treaty. Your demand for a specific clause in the Treaty is prioritising your WP:OR of a WP:PRIMARY source over those reliable sources. We don't do that.

There is debate about what would happen to an independent Scotland or Catalonia, debate that generally follows along predictable political lines in terms of whether people want an independent Scotland or Catalonia, in terms of EU membership. We should cover that debate and use a variety of reliable, secondary sources advancing different positions and/or reliable, secondary sources that discuss the debate. Bondegezou (talk) 13:56, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

No, the article is about countries withdrawing from the EU, see title. Being expelled is an entirely different ball-game. I am not arguing that this section should not exist anywhere, only that it does not belong in this article. (I accept your argument that it is not for us to argue with the sources, so my second two points lapse). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:15, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I looked up a dictionary definition of "withdrawal" and got one definition of "the action of ceasing to participate in an activity". You are making a distinction between voluntary withdrawal and expulsion, but that definition covers both. One ceases to participate whether one chose to withdraw or were expelled. Bondegezou (talk) 16:22, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I disagree that this is incidental to the subject of this article. I don't see how whether these regions intend to withdraw or not as part of their independence movement is relevant. An unintended withdrawal is still a withdrawal, and naturally warrants discussion on this page. I agree with Bondegezou, the distinction between withdrawal and expuslion is not really meaningful. They are considering willingly choosing to withdraw from a member state, and as such could lose any rights they have as part of the member state. That's not expulsion. Finally, on the point about language in the treaties, while is there is legal uncertainty on what would happen, that's not a good reason to ignore the subject as it remains notable. We have cited statements from notable figures who give their views on the matter, and the subject is framed in the regard. TDL (talk) 15:58, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Per my reply to Bondegezou, I have accepted that it is not for us to argue with the RSs. But take a simple thought experiment: suppose that Czechoslovakia had been a member before it divided into Czechia and Slovakia rather than after. Could anyone seriously assert that an arbitrarily chosen one of the two successor states had the right to stay but the other one gets kicked out? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:22, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

In that case, legally both were considered successor states so neither would have retained membership automatically. For example, both had to re-apply for UN membership as neither continued the originigal Czechoslovakia membership. Contrast that with the USSR, where Russia continued the USSR membership in the UN. See Succession of states for more details. Ultimatley it's up to the international community to decide the legal status of successor states. Our job is to document and report that, not to arbitrariy choose ourselves. TDL (talk) 14:07, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

References

Saint Pierre et Miquelon

Saint Pierre and Miquelon was never part of the EU, and not just because the EU didn't technically exist at the time. 72.12.108.35 (talk) 02:20, 9 April 2022 (UTC)