When United Kingdom voters narrowly decide last Thursday in favor of pass away from the European Union , it created fantastic uncertainty about what would happen next . There is a legal mechanism for pull up stakes the EU — clause 50of the Treaty of Lisbon , signed by member commonwealth back in 2007 , which requires the EU to negotiate departure terms with any country that gives at least two days ' bill . But it ’s never been used before . In fact , up to this point , no European nation has ever withdrawn from the EU in the organization’shistory , which dates back to the creation in 1950 of its ancestor , the European Steel and Coal Community .
But that does n’t intend that nobody ever has left the EU , or its predecessors . Algeria once was part of an EU predecessor , the European Economic Community , by moral excellence of being a colonial self-control of France . But after the Algerians gather their independence in 1962 , they simultaneously quit the EEC . ( Here ’s a moredetailed account . ) But they did n’t remain for good apart ; In 1976 , Algeria negociate the first of severaltrade , Department of Labor and fiscal agreementswith the Europeans , and today take part in various EU program through theEuropean Neighborhood Policy .
In 2007 , the Caribbean island archipelago ofSaint Barthélemy , which left the EU when it gained greater political autonomy from France in 2007 , work out a similar deal so that it could continue to participate in EU programs and find economical aid .
But there ’s also a much bragging example . Greenland , the world ’s biggest island and a territory within Denmark , was compelled to link the European Economic Community in 1973 when the residuum of the Danish nation did , even though 70 percent of its residents had vote against membership . But in 1982 , after Greenlanders gained a great degree of political autonomy within Denmark , they held their own referendum , and voted 52 percent to 48 percent — a likewise narrow tolerance to Brexit — to cease the organization .
Unlike the Brexit supporters , who have a form of discontents with the EU , the grievance of Greenlanders were more narrowly focused , harmonise to news story from that time . Greenland ’s big industriousness is fishing , and its fishermen did n’t care European contender being able to just pounce in and take $ 100 million in shrimp , cod and redfish each class . circumscribed access to European markets and the economical assistance that Greenland get from Europe — $ 23 million a twelvemonth — did n’t seem like adequate compensation .
Even so , negotiating Greenland ’s exit took about three years of difficult bargaining . In the end , Greenland at long last father control over its own sportfishing priming , with the understanding that European fishermen would get limited access , and the Europe would cough up about 10 times as much assist , consort to arecent newspaper invoice . Today , Greenland is part of an EU class calledOverseas Countries and Territories , whose members get economical economic aid and obligation - and - quota - destitute access code to EU commonwealth .
But experts on European law and political sympathies say that Greenland does n’t provide much of a template for the U.K. ’s split with the EU .
" Greenland was part of the territory of an existing member state , which left while the penis state stay in the EU,“Panos Koutrakos , a professor of European law at City University London and a barrister at Monckton Chambers , writes in an electronic mail . " Its universe was less than 50,000 people and produced only one product . The differences with the U.K. are too obvious to point out . "
As Koutrakos sees it , " The legal complexity of unraveling the links between the EU and the U.K. are staggering . Article 50 refers to the divorcement arrangement between the U.K. and the EU . The two - class deadline applies to negotiating that placement . The succeeding family relationship between the U.K. and the EU is subject to dialogue for which EU law does not provide any deadline . The Brexit process is bound to be long , extraordinarily complex , and expensive . "
Additionally , if Leave exponent are expect to Greenland as an object lesson of post - EU survival , they might desire to reconsider . In late age , some of Greenland ’s politicians and business leaders , eager to appeal investing and diversify to get away the traditional dependence upon fishing , actually have swim the idea ofrejoining the EU .
Which brings us back to the original decimal point — that the U.K. is sailing into chartless waters . " I hope that somehow people who voted Leave will — well , some of them — realize that they have been sold a whelp , " Anne Deighton , a prof of European International Politics at the University of Oxford ’s Wolfson College , writes in an email . " The Leave campaigner did not tell the whole verity by any reaching of the imagination , and did not have a architectural plan , apart from Leaving . "
