I love the smell of a leaked legal service opinion in the morning

The conclusion: the EU Council legal service says that it's OK for the Brexit deal to be concluded with the UK by the EU only, not needing Member States' participation
The reasoning: the legal service distinguishes between competences reserved to Member States, and competences shared with the EU. For the latter, the EU has the choice of concluding an EU-only treaty.
The legal service summarises the prior case law backing up its interpretation.
It refers to the Weddell case, concerning competence to conclude a treaty on the Antarctic environment, where Member States *could* be involved. But that was based on the particular legal features of the Antarctic treaty; and the UK is not Antarctica.
Applying this reasoning to the UK deal, the legal service says that there's nothing in it which involves exclusive Member State competence. Therefore the EU can choose to conclude it as an EU-only treaty.
In particular competence is shared as regards the social security and aviation parts of the treaty. But again: this means that there's a choice to conclude the treaty as an EU-only treaty, or also with Member States as parties.
The legal service also notes that the UK and individual Member States can sign bilateral agreements within the scope of the Brexit deal - subject to the limits set out in the agreement.
Just thinking of all the times people argued that the treaty would *have* to be ratified by all the Member States - and all the times I replied that we would have to wait and see.
An initial reaction to the legal service opinion from the Walloon Parliament...
Full text of the Council legal service opinion on the Brexit deal now here - https://t.co/zqemdVtQNn

More from Legal

BREAKING: at least six men that provided security for Roger Stone entered the #Capitol during the siege, per a @nytimes visual investigation.

All six are associated with the far-right #OathKeepers militia.

THREAD 1/

Story: https://t.co/abZlcVyaR6


2/ On January 5th, Stone appeared at the Supreme Court, glad-handing and being driven in a go-kart. Later he attended a rally near the White House.

As the @nytimes team shows, his security entourage featured a host of #OathKeepers...


3/ In the morning of the 6th, Stone stood outside the Willard InterContinental hotel, again flanked by men associated with the #OathKeepers.

Some of them, like Rob Minuta, have been named in prior


4/ Interesting detail: while scrutinizing the video of Roger Stone I spotted Rudy Giuliani exiting the same hotel.

Giuliani is accompanied by a man wearing the same outfit as Trump supporter John Eastman & other not-yet ID'd people.

Video source: https://t.co/Rure8TiQTp


5/ Now to the #Capitol: We see a several of Roger Stone's #OathKeeper guards amidst a larger group yelling at police. Video surfaced by the @CTExposers team.👇👇

https://t.co/NWsONDz0OA
These people weren't murdered. They were legally executed after convictions for horrendous crimes, being sentenced to the death penalty, and going through countless appeals.


You can oppose the death penalty as a punishment without pretending that the people executed were victims or that carrying out those executions is comparable to murder.

As an example: Daniel Lee was a white supremacist who murdered a family (including an 8-year-old girl) by suffocating them with bags and then dumping their bodies in a swamp.

That's whose name @CoriBush wants you to remember.

Wesley Purkey admitted to kidnapping, raping, and then murdering a 16-year-old girl named Jennifer Long. He then dismembered her body. He also beat an 80-year-old woman to death.

Maybe we should learn the names of his victims instead, @CoriBush?

Dustin Honken was a meth dealer that murdered 5 people, including 2 girls under the age of 11, because their dad was set to testify against him on drug charges. He was specifically sentenced to death for killing the 2 kids.
Last night TPD arrested and charged two known organizers, @DailyTacoma and our own @ohdamn_jam.

So many people acted quickly, and we were able to make sure they both made bail.


You can read @ohdamn_jam's account of what happened here


If you remember, back in August we were made aware that Pierce County diverted COVID funds to monitor us. We know for sure they monitored and reported on this account and anyone associated with it, such as @DailyTacoma

Side note: They were not read their rights until munch later.

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