Opt-outs in the European Union

However, occasionally member states negotiate certain opt-outs from legislation or treaties of the European Union, meaning they do not have to participate in certain policy areas.

The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 included protocols on the UK[1] (a member state at the time) and Denmark giving them opt-outs with the right to decide if and when they would join the euro.

[1][12][13] Prior to the renewal of the CTA in 2011, when the British government was proposing that passports be required for Irish citizens to enter the UK,[14] there were calls for Ireland to join the Schengen Area.

"[13][15] Although Poland participates in the area of freedom, security and justice, it secured — along with another then-member state the United Kingdom — a protocol that clarified how the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, a part of the Treaty of Lisbon, would interact with national law in their countries limiting the extent that European courts would be able to rule on issues related to the Charter if they were brought to national courts.

[18][19][20] After the Civic Platform won the 2007 parliamentary election in Poland, it announced that it would not opt-out from the Charter, leaving the United Kingdom as the only state not to adopt it.

[21] However, Donald Tusk, the new Prime Minister and leader of the Civic Platform, later qualified that pledge, stating he would consider the risks before abolishing the opt-out,[22] and on 23 November 2007, he announced that he would not eliminate the Charter opt-out after all (despite the fact that both his party and their coalition partner, the Polish People's Party, were in favour of eliminating it), stating that he wanted to honour the deals negotiated by the previous government and that he needed the support of Law and Justice to gain the two-thirds majority in the Parliament of Poland required to approve ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon.

[26] Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radosław Sikorski, of Civic Platform, argued that the protocol only narrowly modified the charter's application in Poland, and that formally renouncing the opt-out would require a treaty amendment that would need to be ratified by all EU member states.

[28] According to Andrew Duff, British Member of the European Parliament, "A Polish constitutional mechanism has since been devised whereby Poland can decide to amend or to withdraw from the Protocol, and such a possibility remains under review.

As part of the 1992 Edinburgh Agreement, Denmark obtained a clarification on the nature of citizenship of the European Union which was proposed in the then yet-to-come-into-force Maastricht Treaty.

In the United Kingdom, the Labour government of Tony Blair argued that the country should revoke its EMU opt-out and join the euro, contingent on approval in a referendum, if five economic tests were met.

[45][46][47] The UK formally requested to participate in certain provisions of the Schengen acquis – Title III relating to Police Security and Judicial Cooperation – in 1999, and this was approved by the Council of the European Union on 29 May 2000.

[50] The opt-out was criticised in the United Kingdom for hampering the country's capabilities to stop transnational crime as a result of the inability to access the Schengen Information System.

[51] The United Kingdom secured its opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU because it was worried that it might be used to alter British labour law, especially as relates to allowing more strikes.

[56] Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Danish government announced that a referendum would be held on 1 June on abolishing its opt-out from this policy area.

[58][59] Following the announcement by the government of the United Kingdom that it would hold a referendum on withdrawing from the European Union, an agreement was reached between it and the EU on renegotiated membership terms should the state vote to remain a member.

In addition to a number of amendments to EU Regulations which would apply to all states, a legal guarantee would be granted to the UK that would explicitly exempt it from the treaty-stated symbolic goal of creating an "ever closer union" by deepening integration.

He stated that he was concerned that the Charter would allow the families of ethnic Germans who were expelled from territory in modern-day Czech Republic after the Second World War to challenge the expulsion before the EU's courts.

[63] In October 2009, EU leaders agreed to amend the protocol on Poland and the United Kingdom's opt-out to include the Czech Republic at the time of the next accession treaty.

[72] In January 2014, following legislative elections the prior October that led to a change in government, the new Czech Human Rights Minister Jiří Dienstbier Jr. said that he would attempt to have his country's request for an opt-out withdrawn.

[73][74] This was confirmed on 20 February 2014 by the new Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, who withdrew the request for an opt-out during a meeting with President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso[75][76][77][78] shortly after his newly elected government won the confidence of Parliament.

[79] In May 2014, the Council of the European Union formally withdrew their recommendation to hold an Intergovernmental Conference of member states to consider the proposed amendments to the treaties.