On 5 October 2021, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly (686 votes in favour, 2 against, 4 abstentions) in favour of setting up the European Parliament’s new standing delegation to the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly. 

The assembly was set up by the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) to help monitor the implementation of the TCA and to serve as ‘a forum to exchange views on the partnership.’  The assembly will be able to make recommendations to the Partnership Council.

The setting up of the Assembly comes at a time when the EU-UK relationship has suffered from tensions over the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol, with Brexit Minister David Frost threatening to trigger Article 16, a clause which suspends any part of the Northern Ireland agreement which causes “economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade”. 

The assembly will have 35 members from each Parliament.  The EU delegation has been announced and the list is available here.  

The UK delegation is currently still in the process of being formed, with the UK’s devolved administrations all wanting to have a seat – the Welsh Senedd, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Scottish National Party have all expressed this view. More detail is available here on this point.  

Updates regarding the UK’s delegation to the assembly are awaited.

October 2021

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