Political, legal and institutional features of Brexit: The European Union perspective

The article aims to solve the scientific problem of identifying the key legal and institutional points of the UK's exit process from the European Union (Brexit) as seen from the EU perspective. The urgency of the problem is determined by the fact that the UK's decision to leave the EU, together with the subsequent negotiation process, taking into account the global and local issues, is a serious challenge to the further functioning of the EU as an integration body. The sources used for writing the article are official treaties and accompanying declarations on the Brexit issue, doctrinal and strategic documents of the European Union, materials from the European Council, the EU Commission, as well as speeches by official representatives of the integration body and member states. A structural-functional version of the system analysis is used to reach the article's aim, orienting the researcher to the structural characteristics of the UK's exit from the EU. The specificity of the object under analysis predetermined the use of the decisional method to focus on the European Union as a decision-making center and on decision elaboration and subsequent implementation. The analysis resulted in identifying the specifics of EU procedures for agreements with third countries used in the Brexit process and resulting in the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration on the future relationship between the UK and EU, and in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the EU priorities in the negotiation process, the negotiating EU team coupled with the importance of the European Parliament. The main conclusions are highlighting the key role of Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, guidelines for negotiating Brexit, a specific regulatory framework for future relations represented by Article 218 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The article emphasises the special role of the European Parliament and its Brexit Steering Group, which allowed lawmakers to participate in developing an EU political strategy for negotiations and, despite a lesser formal role in the Brexit process, to demonstrate high organizational flexibility and the ability to take great part in negotiations. The gained results make a significant contribution to the study of the European Union development problems as well as the parameters of various interaction links within the EU mechanism for political decisions development and implementation in the Brexit negotiation process.

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