We study the exactly degenerate case for three lefthanded Majorana neutrinos building a general parametrization for the leptonic mixing matrix characterized by two angles and one CP violating phase and identify a weak-basis invariant relevant, in this case, for CP violation. After lifting the degeneracy, this parametrization accommodates the present data on atmospheric and solar neutrinos, as well as neutrinoless double beta decay. Some of the leptonic mixing ans\"atze suggested in the literature correspond to special cases of this parametrization.
