You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone! The Impact of Brexit on Member States’ Contribution to the Case Law of the CJEU

Abstract

Brexit is scheduled to happen on October 31, 2019, and researchers have previously studied the impact of Brexit on relationships in the EU’s political institutions. This paper studies how Brexit might affect Member States’ interactions with the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and, more specifically, when they seek to influence the Court by submitting observations. The Untied Kingdom has consistently been a comparatively active Member State, submitting many observations. The paper introduces and employs a novel approach, studying what we call "mentions" in CJEU decisions, to measure position similarity in Member States' observations and to identify the UK's "allies" before the CJEU. The paper concludes the loss of the UK will be felt in particular in Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland and in the Nordic countries.

Keywords: EU law, CJEU, judicial politics, observations, position similarity

JEL Classification: K40