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#Brexit EU Taskforce will be fully operational from 1 October

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brexitToday (14 September) the Commission started to put in place its ‘Task Force’ for the preparation and conduct of the EU’s negotiations with the United Kingdom under Article 50.

President Juncker has already appointed Michel Barnier as Chief Negotiator in charge of the negotiations and of the new Task Force. Today the Commission appointed Sabine Weyand (a German national) to the post of Deputy Chief Negotiator. Currently Deputy Director-General in the Commission's trade department, Weyand has unparalleled expertise on WTO matters, trade defence, TTIP and neighbourhood policy.

Prior to her current role Weyand was in charge of policy coordination in the Commission's Secretariat-General. She was also a member of the cabinet of Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and Head of Cabinet of Development and Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Louis Michel.

Juncker says the new Task Force will be composed of the Commission's ‘best and brightest’. The full team will bring together the ‘deep knowledge and rich experience’ available across the whole Commission.

The 'Article 50 Task Force' will be in charge of preparing and conducting the negotiations with the UK. The Task Force will coordinate the Commission's work on all strategic, operational, legal and financial issues related to these negotiations. It will be able to draw on policy support from all Commission services.

In the meantime, the UK is unsure of what Brexit means, the Prime Minister Theresa May has said that it means Brexit – which isn’t terribly helpful. Brexit minister David Davis has recently acknowledged the scale of his task, but is still sounding bullish. Speaking to the House of Lords European Select Committee on Monday, Davis said that he had assembled about half of his team. International trade minister Liam Fox (disgraced former minister for defence and worst-selling author of  ‘Rising Tides: Facing the Challenges of a New Era’) has admitted that despite its new found self-confidence the UK may have to find a new Permanent Secretary for the Department for International Trade from outside the UK, to this end he has just launched a ‘global’ search.

Background

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The Heads of State or Government of the 27 Member States as well as the Presidents of the European Council and European Commission held an Informal Meeting in Brussels on 29 June 2016 following the Referendum of 23 June in the United Kingdom.

They agreed on the need to organise the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union in an orderly fashion. Article 50 of the TEU provides the legal basis for this process. In line with the principle of 'no negotiation without notification', the task of the Chief Negotiator in the coming months will be to prepare the ground internally for the work ahead. Once the Article 50 process is triggered, he will take the necessary formal contacts with the UK authorities.

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