At Brussels and London, on 30 December 2020, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of the one part, and the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the other part, conclude the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Article 1 provides that the Agreement establishes the basis for a broad relationship between the Parties, within an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness characterised by close and peaceful relations based on cooperation, respectful of each Party's autonomy and sovereignty.

Article 7 establishes a Partnership Council, comprising representatives of the Union and of the United Kingdom. It is co-chaired by a Member of the European Commission and a representative of the Government of the United Kingdom at ministerial level; it meets at the request of either Party and, in any event, at least once a year. The Council oversees the attainment of the objectives of this Agreement and any supplementing agreement, supervises and facilitates their implementation and application, and may adopt decisions where the text so provides, including, in the cases provided for, amendments. The rules of procedure in Annex 1 provide that meetings are held alternately in Brussels and London, unless the co-chairs agree otherwise.

In the title on trade in goods, Article 21 prohibits, except as otherwise provided, customs duties on all goods originating in the other Party. Article 22 prohibits any duty, tax or other charge of any kind on or in connection with the exportation of a good to the other Party, and any internal tax or other charge on a good exported to the other Party in excess of that imposed on like goods destined for domestic consumption. Freedom of transit incorporates, mutatis mutandis, Article V of GATT 1994. Title XI of the same heading requires frameworks for subsidies, competition and labour, environment, climate and taxation standards, so that the economic partnership is underpinned by a level playing field for open and fair competition and sustainable development.

Part Two also covers services and investment, digital trade, intellectual property, public procurement, energy, aviation, road transport and social security coordination. Heading Five, on fisheries, affirms in Article 493 that the sovereign rights of coastal States exercised by the Parties are to be conducted pursuant to international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Article 494 requires cooperation so that fishing for shared stocks in their waters is environmentally sustainable in the long term, fully respecting the rights and obligations of independent coastal States, and shares the objective of exploiting shared stocks at rates intended to maintain and restore populations above biomass levels that can produce the maximum sustainable yield, based principally on advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea.

Part Three concerns law enforcement and judicial cooperation in criminal matters. Part Five governs participation of the United Kingdom in certain Union programmes. Part Six organises dispute settlement. Article 4 requires interpretation in accordance with public international law, including the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969; an interpretation given by the courts of either Party is not binding on the courts of the other. Article 5, subject to the reservations stated, confers no rights on persons other than those created between the Parties under public international law and does not permit the Agreement to be directly invoked in domestic legal systems.

Article 774 applies the Agreement to the territories to which the Union treaties apply and to the territory of the United Kingdom, and, to the extent set out in the fisheries heading and Article 520, to the Bailiwick of Guernsey, the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Isle of Man. The Agreement neither applies to Gibraltar nor has any effects in that territory; it also does not apply to the overseas territories having special relations with the United Kingdom listed in paragraph 4, including Anguilla, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, the Falkland Islands and the British Indian Ocean Territory.

Article 779 allows either Party to terminate the Agreement by written notification through diplomatic channels; the Agreement and any supplementing agreement cease to be in force on the first day of the twelfth month following the date of notification. Article 780 provides that the Agreement is drawn up in duplicate in the twenty-four Union languages, followed by final legal-linguistic revision by 30 April 2021, after which the resulting versions replace the signed versions ab initio and are established as authentic by exchange of diplomatic notes. Article 783 provides that the Agreement enters into force on the first day of the month following the Parties' notifications that they have completed their internal requirements for consent to be bound; the Parties agree to apply it provisionally from 1 January 2021 if those requirements for provisional application have been completed before that date, and provisional application ceases on 28 February 2021 or another date decided by the Partnership Council, or on the date of entry into force, whichever is earliest. United Kingdom Treaty Series No. 8/2021 records entry into force on 1 May 2021. This instrument is not the Withdrawal Agreement, nor the supplementing agreement on classified information, nor the civil nuclear cooperation agreement concluded in the same package.

Image: Berlaymont building, Brussels; KenSwe72, 14 May 2017; CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Treaty text: Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the United Kingdom, of the one part, and the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the other part, Brussels and London, 30 December 2020, TS No.8/2021.