On 9 July 2019 the Council adopted contingency measures on the implementation and financing of the 2019 EU budget in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The aim of such measures is to mitigate the impact of a no-deal scenario for funding in a wide range of areas.
Since the UK notified the EU of its intention to withdraw from the EU, the EU consistently stated that both the EU and the UK should respect the financial obligations resulting from the UK’s membership in the EU. This principle was recalled in the European Council (Article 50) guidelines of 29 April 2017 for the Brexit negotiations and reflected in the draft withdrawal agreement accepted by the Member States in November 2018.
The measures most recently adopted by the Council will enable the EU to continue to make payments to UK beneficiaries for contracts signed and decisions made before the withdrawal date, so long as the UK continues to pay its contribution to the EU budget for 2019 and accepts the necessary controls and audits for EU programmes and actions. The European Parliament provided consent for this contingency framework on 17 April 2019.
The eligibility of financing the UK and UK entities using the EU budget in 2019 will only be maintained if the above conditions are met. The said contingency framework would cease to apply if the UK were to discontinue payments or where significant deficiencies were observed in the execution of the controls and audits.
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