Article 50(1) of the TEU: The member states’ “own constitutional requirements” for withdrawal before the CJEU

Abstract The Court of Justice of the European Union could exercise control over a withdrawal notification under article 50(1) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and establish a common framework of minimum constitutional standards for exercising the right of withdrawal from the European Union (EU). To that end, the court could continue to judicialize article 2 of the TEU in line with recent case law and operationalize the value of democracy in the context of a withdrawal notification. Given the constitutional magnitude of withdrawal, the court could treat EU withdrawal as somewhere in between a treaty exit and a secession, drawing inspiration both from recent trends on democratization of treaty making and unmaking as well as from the recent constitutionalization of secessions.