Jake Benford / May 2025
Photo: Shutterstock
Last week’s inaugural EU-UK summit marks an end to both sides’ unconstructive approaches to dealing with Brexit, the low-points of which were the UK’s Global Britain fantasies and the EU’s need to believe that Brexit must fail. The summit confirms structural barriers to the relationship, but also offered pointers on where things might go. The bigger prize, however, remains elusive.
Red lines were stretched - but only so far
The UK accepted new obligations by adhering to EU rules on foodstuff, plants and energy, opening its borders to young Europeans and stabilizing the existing agreement on fisheries. The EU in return showed some flexibility in offering the UK improved access to three parts of the - officially indivisible - single market (SPS, energy, defence procurement). But notable gaps - product conformity assessment, financial and other services, economic security – are a reminder of the fundamental conflict: the EU and the UK may be like-minded allies and security partners but also economic competitors. EU institutions were quick to brief that a sector-based, step-by-step access to the single market is not the logical next step, and there appears to be little appetite in the Labour party to recast its red lines on EU proximity. Still, this is a reminder of how seemingly deep-seated structural barriers can be eased as trust grows. The fancy word for this is “external differentiation” – each partnership can be different as long as interests are protected. And, as we see, interests are changing on both sides of the channel.
There is public support on both sides for closer ties - but a grand political narrative remains absent
Post-summit opinion polls in the UK endorse the direction of travel towards closer cooperation, including among a substantial share of leave-voters. And yet, the UK government has struggled to create a new narrative around the reset that would shift the debate from apprehensive tiptoeing around Europe’s economic and political centre to a bigger story of European solidarity, built on like-mindedness, joint interests and a shared need for security, resilience and growth. Continental attitudes towards the UK, meanwhile, are explored less regularly but usually show broad support for a closer relationship. Here too there is little trace of an imaginative EU vision for a sui generis, tailor-made partnership with the UK, in line with Brussels’ aspirations to be a strategic player in a geopolitical world. Thankfully, Germany’s main tabloid filled this space admirably with a convincing, bottom-up take on what it all means for Europeans, while we wait for bigger things: less queuing, less crime, lower electricity bills, more pet travel, more cheddar, more students at British universities and vice-versa.
The bigger prize of better EU-UK relations – a revived Western alliance – remains elusive
The new Security and Defence Partnership (SDP) – the only formally signed agreement of the summit - disappointed those who hoped that both sides would rise to geopolitical occasion and agree on a concrete set of joint undertakings. The text is indeed mostly aspirational, suggesting rather than confirming opportunities like UK participation in EU civilian or miliary missions or indeed game-changing questions such as UK participation in EU defence procurement. But this is arguably not a failure of the negotiators. Rather, it is a reflection that Europe’s new security architecture is still in the process of being constructed, with each of the existing fora barred or inhibited in some way or another: NATO due to US ambiguity, the EU due to its rigid nature, lack of hard power capacities and internal divisions, EPC due to its lack of formal capacities and instruments, coalitions of the willing due to their short-term and exclusive nature, and so forth. The ideal institutional structures, which permit nimble, strategic action whilst also producing legally binding agreements seem a long way off. The former is a traditional UK strength, the latter a formidable quality of the EU. Perhaps it is the deepening of this relationship that will help to come up with the most convincing ideas to safeguard European security and resilience as we move forward, one summit at a time.
