Europe after Brexit: a proposal for a new Continental Partnership

After the British decision to leave the EU, Europe’s trajectory – even its destiny – is again up for discussion. In an increasingly volatile world, neither the EU nor the UK have an interest in a divorce that diminishes their influence as the balance of economic power shifts away from the North-Atlantic world. In this article, exclusive to LSE Brexit in English, Jean Pisani-Ferry, Norbert Röttgen, André Sapir, Paul Tucker and Guntram B Wolff propose a new form of collaboration – a continental partnership. The UK will want to have some control over labour mobility, as well as leaving behind the EU’s supranational decision-making. The proposed continental partnership would consist in participating in goods, services, capital mobility and some temporary labour mobility as well as in a new system of inter-governmental decision making and enforcement of common rules to protect the homogeneity of the deeply integrated market. The UK would have a say on EU policies, but ultimate formal authority would remain with the EU. This results in a Europe with an inner circle, the EU, with deep and political integration, and an outer circle with less integration. In the long run this could also serve as a vision for structuring relations with Turkey, Ukraine and other countries.