Baku State University

The Treaty on European Union (TEU) explicitly foresees that a Member State may leave the EU. The involvement of EU institutions, and the various procedural arrangements imported from the EU treaty-making procedure, confirm that the exit clause is firmly embedded in the EU legal order. As such, it is governed not only by the terms of Article 50 TEU, but also by the canons of EU constitutional law.

European Commission. The role of the European Commission in the withdrawal procedure is not entirely clear in the Treaties. According to Article 218(3) TFEU, the European Commission would make recommendations to the Council to open negotiations with the withdrawing state. As a general rule, the Commision negotiates agreements with third countries on behalf of the EU, but Article 218(3) leaves it open for the Council to nominate a different Union negotiator [9, 33].