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With Vladimir Putin to the east and Donald Trump to the west, the UK and the EU are rediscovering what they have in common. On May 19, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government and EU leaders will hold a summit in London. They are expected to sign agreements in three broad areas. There will be a short declaration of common principles. There will be a security and defence pact, opening the way to the UK’s participation in EU-backed military spending. And there will be an agreement for talks on a range of irritants left behind by Brexit — from some trade barriers to youth mobility.
Nine years after Britain voted for Brexit, these will be the first new agreements under Labour designed to bring the EU and Britain closer together again.
The mere fact that London and Brussels are once more dealing with each other in a positive spirit is important. Even if the initial results seem modest, they provide a basis for future co-operation.
The deals that are expected to be signed off this month do have some substance. The UK has significant military capacities and a defence industrial base that can be crucial to the European rearmament drive. British industry will benefit from access to increased EU defence spending.
Even the May 19 deal is unlikely to give the UK immediate access to European defence funds. The details of how that happens will have to be negotiated in a further agreement — with the UK likely to have to agree to pay a user fee to get access to the EU money pot.
For some in Britain, this will bring back bad memories of the grudging proceduralism that always irritated them about Brussels. But the UK has already made a financial contribution to get back into the EU’s €96bn Horizon research programme last year, so the precedent is established.
The sense that the EU has not fully grasped the urgency of the moment is enhanced by the fact that signature of a defence deal was made conditional on Britain agreeing to continued EU access to UK fishing grounds. But Britain itself is being unnecessarily grudging about making it easier for young Europeans to work or study in the UK
All this caution reflects the domestic political pressures that both sides are under from the nationalist right. After the huge gains for the Reform UK party in English local elections last week, the Starmer government will be even warier of anything that sounds like increased immigration. France is nervous about bolstering support for the far right in coastal communities, ahead of presidential elections in 2027.
Slow progress in areas that are obviously mutually beneficial — such as defence and education — is frustrating. But political triumphs for Reform in Britain or the Rassemblement National in France would make it all but impossible to bring Britain and the EU closer together.
Once the May 19 agreements are signed, Brussels and London will have a broad range of additional issues to work on. They include energy and the regulation of AI. With both the EU and the UK struggling with slow growth and American tariffs, it is also clearly in both sides’ interests to increase trade and investment across the Channel.
UK officials continue to insist that they will not reopen the key trade elements of the Brexit deal. The EU insists that the rules of the single market must remain sacrosanct.
At some point both sides are going to have to show more flexibility to spur faster growth. Once the May 19 agreements are signed, a more ambitious economic agenda should become central to the rebuilding of ties between Britain and the EU.