Okay, lets start this one by looking at the legal definition. We start with the European Union Referendum Act 2015, which says:
A referendum is to be held on whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union.
The important thing to note is that there is no definition of the European Union in the Act. This means we need to look elsewhere for the definition. If we look at the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008 we can find the definition:
(1)In section 1(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 (interpretation) before the definition of “the Communities” insert—
““the EU” means the European Union, being the Union established by the Treaty on European Union signed at Maastricht on 7th February 1992 (as amended by any later Treaty),”.
(2)A reference to the EU in an Act or an instrument made under an Act includes, if and in so far as the context permits or requires, a reference to the European Atomic Energy Community.
So the European Union in the referendum is a mixture of a number of different communities, including the European Atomic Energy Community. Never heard of it? well it is a community that has existed for a long time, and it is more dominant than the other communities – in as much as the other communities are not allowed into it’s legal domain.
I spotted this before the referendum and wrote to the government department responsible to get confirmation – does it surprise you that I am still waiting for a reply?
This introduces some interesting problems. First – Article 50 is related to the other treaties – not the EURATOM treaty. In fact the EURATOM treaty has no exit paragraph – the intention was once you were in you were in. Why? Well that will become obvious as we go on. Instead we will probably need to rely on the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and that will possibly result in resorting to the Article 33 of the UN charter:
Article 33
1. The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.
2. The Security Council shall, when it deems necessary, call upon the parties to settle their dispute by such means.
In other words the Russians could have an input to our Brexit deal!
So what is EURATOM about. Well, first and foremost (in my view) it is about non-proliferation – stopping people diverting nuclear material into a weapons programme. Inspectors visit nuclear establishments over Europe and set up monitoring, check records and make sure all the stuff is where it should be. If we leave this we will then need to make sure we switch to the Vienna safeguards system (technically we are part of it, so it should be easy).
A key aspect of the EURATOM community is set out in Article 86
Special fissionable materials shall be the property of the Community.
What does that mean – well it means all of the nuclear material in the UK is owned by the community we have decided to leave. You know those waste stores you have seen in the Sellafield documentaries – well guess what – they are owned by the community and we will either need to hand the material back, or agree to it’s transfer to somebody in the UK. Not too hard, we will just need to make sure we know exactly how much there is there.
Unlike the other treaties though, because this is a non-proliferation treaty, there is a prohibition on external trade without a commission negotiated trade agreement. So when we leave the community they cannot sell us any nuclear goods unless the European Commission negotiates a specific trade agreement with us. I used to be involved in this – and I can tell you we deliberately added sections to force external countries follow the community rules, and that will continue to happen.
But what does that mean in practice – well remember that French designed reactor we have agreed to buy – sorry – when we leave Europe they will be unable to sell it to us unless the commission establishes a specific nuclear trade agreement. I wonder who will need to pay compensation if we do something that negates the contract?
The EURATOM community also sets out the nuclear safety rules that apply in the UK.
So is this what you thought we were leaving? This is just one taster of what the European Union means. You could look at air safety, road safety, maybe roaming agreements for mobile phones, maybe banking agreements (try sending money to Europe and you will see there are rules that reduce the costs).
We hear about free market and immigration – not forgetting sovereignty – but this is just a small part of what the European Union is about.