From deal to entry into force

The saga of the EO-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, TCA.

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. Ratified by European Parliament this week in Brussels.

The Christmas Eve deal 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 April 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 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.

You can read about the fascinating journey of the TCA here: From Deal to entry into Force

Source: European Parliament