Today, EU leaders are meeting at the European Council in Brussels to discuss a range of issues affecting the bloc. But a measure of the difficulties British negotiators face can be found in where UK relations lie on the agenda: Volodymyr Zelenskyy is visiting, and the post-Brexit landscape is up for discussion at the same lunch meeting as the war in Ukraine, the Middle East crisis and Donald Trump’s presidency. With that competition, it’ll be lucky to get a mention over coffee.
That context indicates why the “surrender squad” rhetoric is fairly implausible: quite apart from the UK’s own intentions, any “surrender” requires that your counterpart is at least interested in the conquest. “It feels like a headline from a different planet,” Jennifer Rankin said. “If it registers at all in Brussels, it’s as an indication of why the UK government is nervous about the reset – and why they’re treading very carefully.”
What does the UK want from a ‘reset’?
When he became the first British prime minister to meet European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen since Boris Johnson in 2020, Starmer emphasised that his government would make a tonal break with the past.
There would be, he said; “A return to pragmatism, to doing business in a respectful way and in a way which will focus on deliverables, rather than charging to the nearest camera to use a megaphone.” The Tories have sought to cast any move in that direction – like the hiring of a new negotiator – as “arrogant capitulation”, which is not the mood generally associated with capitulation, but never mind.
As for what those “deliverables” might be: a joint statement by Starmer and von der Leyen referenced the war in Ukraine and global “economic headwinds”, and said that discussions would start with “defining together the areas in which strengthened cooperation would be mutually beneficial, such as the economy, energy, security and resilience”.
All of that could mean new terms on a trade deal, regular UK-EU summits – von der Leyen and Starmer agreed to an annual schedule – and better coordination on migration and foreign policy. A couple of specific areas on trade are priorities: negotiating a veterinary agreement that would mean fewer border checks for meat, fish, dairy and live animals, and agreeing a mutual recognition agreement for professional qualifications.
Foreign secretary David Lammy and chancellor Rachel Reeves (pictured above) have met their European counterparts in the last couple of months. “So there is a clear effort on the British government’s part to appear constructive,” Jennifer said. “But they are very emphatic about the red lines.”
What does the EU want?
A bit more clarity of purpose from the UK, for a start. In this analysis piece from October, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung says that the question doing the rounds in Brussels is: “What does Starmer really want from the EU, apart from nice pictures with the important people in Brussels and an improvement in tone?”
If there are 100 civil servants assigned to the problem, their impact has not yet been felt. “The EU is still waiting for some sort of signal of how the UK would manage the trade-offs necessary for what it is seeking,” Jennifer said.
“It does want agreements on foreign policy and security, along with cooperation to counter irregular migration – although that’s mostly happening on a country-to-country basis at the moment. But the economic relationship is much more complicated, because making any changes means that you get tangled up in EU law.”
She gives the example of the UK’s desire to ease restrictions on touring artists in the EU – which sounds pretty trivial, but comes up against “cabotage” rules that restrict UK drivers’ ability to haul equipment across Europe. EU officials feel that if the UK wants to make progress on such thorny questions, it should show willingness to revive the youth mobility scheme that allowed EU citizens under 30 to live and work in the UK, and vice versa.
“That is an area where talks might hit the rocks,” Jennifer said. “It really irritates people in Brussels because they don’t see it as ‘free movement’ since it’s restricted by time and by age.”
In this analysis piece, Jennifer also notes a leaked internal EU document which says that a reset “is only credible” if EU fishing rights in British waters are maintained. Meanwhile, a court case where the European Commission is challenging restrictions on EU citizens’ family members to live in the UK is casting a shadow over the prospective talks. “It’s not insurmountable,” Jennifer said. “But the EU has said that it won’t move forward with new agreements until the existing ones are honoured.”
How likely is it that progress will be made?
There is a genuine sense in Brussels that the UK is now a more reasonable negotiating partner than in the past – but they don’t typically date the change to Labour’s election victory, Jennifer said. “Most people put the turning point at the signing of the Windsor framework on arrangements in Northern Ireland under Rishi Sunak. The tone was felt to be more positive from that point.”
In general, officials in Brussels believe that “geopolitics is bringing the two sides together, especially since the invasion of Ukraine, and on the question of how to respond if Donald Trump reduces US funding. So there is an appetite for a better relationship.”
Starmer will join an EU leaders retreat in February: if there is progress on the low-hanging fruit of foreign policy and defence there, progress on the more difficult questions could follow. “There is less drama around them now, but these are still difficult technical questions,” Jennifer said. “So it’s really all still up in the air.”
Does any of this amount to a ‘betrayal’ of Brexit?
“It’s really far-fetched,” Jennifer said. “The really big dividing lines on the single market and the customs union are still there, and agreements in particular areas don’t move the dial on that, even if they’re important in their own right.”
It’s also worth noting the relatively minor nature of the changes the UK is seeking. In this August analysis, Anand Menon of UK in a Changing Europe noted that even the veterinary agreement, perhaps the biggest single item on the UK’s agenda, covers a sector that is worth just 0.6% of the UK’s GDP.
Of course, it is possible that over the long term, lots of agreements in different areas bring the two sides into closer alignment. “In theory, the EU would be open to an application to rejoin at some point,” Jennier said. But the terms would be very different to the ones the UK left on, and the issue remains politically toxic in Britain. “Nobody thinks it’s remotely likely,” she added. “So, for the foreseeable future, the EU just isn’t engaging in the question.”
