This chapter outlines the procedures for the accession to and withdrawal from the European Union. The accession procedure begins with an application to become a member of the Union. Article 49 TEU provides that '[a]ny European State which respects the values referred to in Article 2 and is committed to promoting them' may apply to become a member of the Union. The requirement that a candidate Member State should respect 'the values referred to in Article 2' was introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon and refers to the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. Since the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the Treaties also make it possible for any Member State to withdraw from the European Union (Article 50 TEU). The leaving Member State has to negotiate and conclude an agreement with the Union, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal and taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. The chapter then looks at the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union, so-called Brexit.

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This book is a comprehensive textbook on EU constitutional law, setting out the structure, values, procedures, and policies of the European Union. It encompasses five major parts. The first part addresses the formation history of the European Union, the treaties, the accessions, and the withdrawal of the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, the second part provides an extensive analysis of the key constitutional principles governing the exercise of competences by the Union and the balance of power between the Union and its Member States, followed by an in-depth analysis of EU citizenship and the four freedoms. The third part addresses the role and workings of the various institutions, while part four looks at the various decision-making processes. The fifth part considers the legal instruments and the position of Union law in the EU and national legal orders, with an attention to the key principles of primacy and direct effect, and the role of fundamental rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Finally, the book sets out the complete and coherent system of judicial protection in the European Union, offering an overview of the various courses of action before the EU courts and in the national legal orders to enforce Union law or to obtain judicial protection.

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This chapter traces the origin of the European Union, which goes back to the European Communities established in 1951 and 1957. The legal provisions that were brought about in the framework of these Communities have been generally referred to as 'Community law'. Prior to this 'Community' integration process and in parallel thereto, European States have engaged in other forms of cooperation. Indeed, the Member States of the European Union have concluded agreements amongst themselves concerning cooperation in areas falling outside the Communities' sphere of operation to which they did not attach the same legal consequences as Community action. In 1992, the link which existed in practice between the two integration paths was institutionalized by packaging them into the European Union, yet without altering the specific legal character of either path. As a result, the distinction remained between Community and non-Community action, whereby only acts of the institutions based on one of the Community Treaties constituted a source of 'Community law'. This distinction largely disappeared with the entry into force on December 1, 2009, of the Lisbon Treaty, which merged both Community and non-Community provisions into one European Union based on the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).