BREXIT or the Council's "carotte".

 

The Conclusions include the amendments to the Treaties which are to occur if the UK decides to remain within the EU. Citizen's rights to residence under the TFEU will no longer be absolutes, and will require evidence of economic self sufficiency.

It also includes general indications that the non-Euro Member States, i.e. the UK can avail themselves of a form of objection or internal "clameur de haro" to the extent that any Council measure based on proportional voting attempts to curtail the independence of UK regulation of its  Banking sector.

Quite whether the statement as to Banking Regulation as between the Euro and non-Euro member States is sufficient to enable the City's protection as such from the envious and possibly ignorant claims and aspersions of France and Germany is another matter.

The opportunity may have been lost to write down the fact that the United Kingdom is in effect an Island state with slightly different legal and economic characteristics to the continental majority of Member States, with the exception of Cyprus and Malta; and, to the extent that the Grecian topography is made up mostly of sea and islands, Greece. Germany ahs been seeking to take ofver inter island communications in Greece wth a view to putting the mothballed elements of its merchant navy back to sea.

Whether the Decision, conditional on the Brexit vote going the EU's way is enough to shelter the City completely remains to be seen.

The text of the Conclusions of 18th and 19th February may be found here, with the Decision, whose legal effect is dependent upon the United Kingdom voting to stay in.

What is interesting is that the UK will apparently deposit this text with the UN in order to ensure that the Consilium does not backtrack on the Decision. A curious form of rendering the decision valid outside the institutional hierarchy