Saturday, November 9, 2024

UK and EU consider holding first summit to improve post-Brexit relationship

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Britain and the EU are looking to hold their first-ever bilateral summit in the coming months as part of Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s attempt to “reset” post-Brexit relations with Brussels.

EU and British officials have confirmed that a summit — of the kind the EU regularly holds with third countries such as India and China — is being considered as part of efforts to reset the bilateral relationship.

Starmer will continue his efforts to re-establish Britain on the world stage on Thursday when he hosts a meeting of almost 50 European leaders at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill.

The one-day meeting of the European Political Community — a mix of EU member states and other European countries — would give Starmer a chance to “speed date” several fellow leaders, one British official said.

Charles Michel, president of the European Council, was likely to discuss the idea with Starmer on the sidelines of the meeting, an EU official said.

“At the moment, we are working through options on engagement. But can’t pre-empt what exactly that looks like,” a UK official said.

Both sides cautioned that the plan was at an early stage. But in the first days of his premiership, Starmer signalled his plans to re-engage with the Brussels institutions.

Starmer had a phone call with Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, shortly after his July 4 election win, with Downing Street describing the UK-EU relationship as “unique”.

On Monday, Nick Thomas-Symonds, European relations minister, held talks with Maroš Šefčovič, European Commission vice-president. “There have been lots of fruitful discussions,” said the UK government. “But these are early days.”

Starmer wants to establish a wide-ranging UK-EU defence and security pact and to ease trade tensions in areas such as agricultural goods.

The EU has not had a formal summit with the UK since it left the bloc in 2020, instead working through technical committees set up under their bilateral trade deal.

“If we have summits with the US or Asean, it would make perfect sense to have a summit with the UK, our nearest neighbour,” said an EU diplomat. Michel and the European Commission both declined to comment.

EU officials have said they will not rule anything out in reformulating the bloc’s relationship with the UK.

Asked whether the EU could have more interaction with the UK, including an EU-UK summit in future, a senior EU official said that despite the bloc having “a list of many agreements” with the UK, “if there is a wish to go beyond and have a more strategic relationship, we will see what can be done and we are not excluding anything”.

But, the official added: “What we think is crucial is implementation of existing agreements. Those are the [red] lines we have.”

Klaus Welle, former secretary-general of the European parliament, said that Brussels would welcome an “honest attempt” to reset the relationship.

But he said there was no appetite to “go back into the situation we had at the time of the negotiations or the situation of ‘pick and choose’”, referring to an early UK aspiration that it could ‘cherry pick’ certain parts of EU policy in the post-Brexit trading arrangements.

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