From deal
to entry into force
The post-Brexit agreement:
what happened backstage?
It was like a Christmas gift. The deal between the EU and the UK was concluded at exactly 14.44 on 24 December 2020, Christmas Eve. This started the race against the clock so the agreement could (at least provisionally) enter into force on 1 January 2021. But the clock didn’t stop ticking on New Year’s Eve. Let us walk you through what happened between then and May 2021.
It is a unique deal in many ways. Legal texts of such importance are thoroughly checked by lawyer-linguists (experts in both law and languages, who revise and finalise legal texts). For a document of this size, this usually takes more than four months. In December, there were only a few days left... They did what they could but due to time constraints the text that was agreed still contained some technical errors and inaccuracies. These were corrected at a later stage.
Rushing into print
On 28 December the document was sent to be printed at a specialised printing house located in the basement of the Council's Justus Lipsius building in Brussels.
The 1 246 pages of the agreement were printed in two copies in English on bord rouge paper. This is the paper the EU uses for all its treaties and agreements. It has double red framing around each page.
The paper cut, called foolscap, is a bit larger than A4. The spine of the treaty was 9 cm wide.
The treaty was bound with red ribbon through four holes.
The two versions were not identical – both had blue covers, but only one had the 12 golden EU stars on it.
On 28 December the document was sent to be printed at a specialised printing house located in the basement of the Council's Justus Lipsius building in Brussels.
The 1 246 pages of the agreement were printed in two copies in English on bord rouge paper. This is the paper the EU uses for all its treaties and agreements. It has double red framing around each page.
The paper cut, called foolscap, is a bit larger than A4. The spine of the treaty was 9 cm wide.
The treaty was bound with red ribbon through four holes.
The two versions were not identical – both had blue covers, but only one had the 12 golden EU stars on it.
It took about two hours to print it and much longer to check it. 'I checked every single page to make sure that each sheet was flawless', said the Council employee who worked on the print run run.
Then, throughout the day on 29 December, the text was once again proofread by the EU and UK sides. The experts still spotted some mistakes and a few pages were reprinted. By the evening, the documents were ready to be signed.
Travelling treaty
At 9.30 on 30 December 2020, Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen, the Presidents of the European Council and the European Commission, respectively, signed the documents on behalf of the EU.
The media call it a post-Brexit deal but, to be precise, these are three separate agreements:
- the trade and cooperation agreement
- the security of information agreement
- the agreement for cooperation on the safe and peaceful uses of nuclear energy
The very same day the treaty was flown to London on a Royal Air Force plane, accompanied by EU and UK officials.
In the afternoon, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson signed it right after getting the green light from the British Parliament. One copy was then flown back to Brussels.
Why by military plane? For practical reasons. 'Due to COVID‑19, there were fewer trains between Brussels and London. We would not have made it on time if we had taken a train', explained the person who kept an eye on the documents during the journey.
Read the fine print
If you think that was the end of the process, you couldn't be more wrong. Right after the signing, the parties to the agreements, i.e. the EU and the UK, had to be formally notified of its provisional application.
As the agreements needed to enter into force on 1 January 2021 and there was not enough time either for legal-linguistic revision or for the European Parliament to vote on it, provisional application was agreed.
In January, Council lawyer-linguists started doing what they hadn’t been able to do before the agreements were signed. First they corrected inaccuracies and technical errors in the English version. They then checked the wording in all other EU languages. During this process they made thousands of corrections. All of this to ensure that the text has exactly the same legal meaning in all languages.
The parties to the agreement and the EU member states commented on the various language versions. There were a few thousand comments in total. Each of them had to be carefully checked and addressed.
The document was also reformatted in order to have the same content on the same page in each language version.
On 21 April, mutual agreement was reached between the parties on the final, official texts in all languages.
The final version of the three agreements, together with the annexes and declarations, is 2 575 pages long.
In parallel, the European Parliament proceeded with its discussion. On 15 April, the foreign affairs and trade committees voted in favour of the agreements. On 27 April, the Parliament gave its consent in a vote in a plenary session.
On 29 April, the Council adopted a decision on the conclusion of the EU-UK trade and cooperation agreement and the security of information agreement. This is the last step for the EU in the ratification of the agreements.
The UK was then notified of the finalisation of the internal EU procedures. Following this, on 30 April, the agreements and accompanying texts were published in the Official Journal of the EU. On 1 May 2021, the agreements entered into force.
Final destination
The signed copy will reside in the Council's archives. Documents of such importance are all stored in a special, secure room with a stable temperature of 16 to 20 degrees and regulated humidity in order to preserve the paper .
The treaty will rarely be moved. In future, once the Council's visitors' centre has reopened, you might see a certified copy on display. The original will also sometimes have visitors, such as journalists and VIP guests.
Photo credits:
- Boris Johnson - © Leon Neal, AFP
- The plane - © Verena Schubert
- Palace of Westminster - © Hugo Sousa on Unsplash
- All other photos and videos - © European Union
Last modified: 3 May 2021
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