David Henig / Sep 2026
Hamish Falconer, British Minister of State for Intergovernmental Relations and European Relations and Maroš Šefčovič, European Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
(a companion piece to everything Brussels really thinks about the UK)
There are 27 countries present and permanently negotiating almost every policy area in Brussels. These are the member states, with their own priorities for regulations, trade, movement of people, industrial policy, culture and so much more.
All other countries including the UK are secondary. These 150+ are also engaged in an ongoing negotiation, some to join, on similar issues alongside companies, pressure groups, and other stakeholders. Two, the US and China, are by far the most important as the global superpowers, meaning the UK can only ever scrape into the top 30.
Notwithstanding their possible freedoms, almost all neighbouring countries have extensive inter-connections with the EU. A power imbalance almost always applies though. Successful outcomes usually won’t be a crucial priority for the EU, while trade, transport, energy ties, defence and much else starts with the nearest markets – therefore at a disadvantage.
For the UK there are at least two added problems. First is that politicians and media are accustomed to bashing the EU, entirely normal for members but poorly received from others. Then there is the blow to continental solidarity that Brexit inflicted, a subject rarely understood in Westminster since the origins of the entire integration project.
One could also add the sense that Brexit shouldn’t ever be seen as a viable path for any current member, now less of an issue since it clearly isn’t, and a lack of understanding in the UK as to how the EU interacts with third countries. Brexit devotees wanted this to be on the basis of equality with large member states like Germany and France, but that’s not how the system works.
Member States have their own priorities to pursue. More importantly though, the central negotiating hub for everything is the European Commission, directly with third countries.
This then is the uphill struggle that the UK faces in dealing with the EU, all the worse for rarely being expressed as such. Governments need negotiations to be successful, whereas for Brussels it is more about finding ways where possible to strengthen the EU through external engagement. Fortunately this does leave the door ajar a little.
Start then with the basics. The EU is the UK’s most important external relationship and therefore deserves the largest team on the ground. These can’t just be diplomats but should also include subject market specialists and secondees who will gain respect in Brussels, as well as regularly visiting politicians and officials.
Next, the UK needs to be visible and bring helpful ideas to Brussels. That means regularly hosting events typically with visitors from the UK, as well as being seen around the coffee houses, lunch spots, and Union Saint-Gilloise football matches beloved of the Brussels bubble. It also means dumping damaging secrecy and engaging in public with explanations around asks and the latest state of relations.
Learning to speak, hear and understand Brussels is hugely important. This is less a language and more a sense of how a community of diverse interests reaches compromise decisions, which is based more around those informal discussions than what happens in formal Council or European Parliament meetings.
There are members of the UK community in Brussels who are fluent navigators of the EU’s capital, and they need to be engaged far more, not least in training a new generation of government specialists. One or two have already arguably achieved more in negotiations than any number of government officials. They did so by assiduous and clever engagement that seeks to find areas of commonality.
However great the temptation, UK Ministers that want positive relations must not lecture the EU on its failings, or threaten to go directly to Member States. The first – seen recently with regard to Made in Europe – sounds appalling coming from a country that decided to leave, while the second just reveals that you don’t know how the EU deals with third countries even if the Commission sometimes uses this as a distraction tool.
Member state engagement cannot be ignored, they are vital to internal negotiations and can provide intelligence as can MEPs. However, while third countries need warm relations all round, they are not, even France, central to negotiations with third countries.
Senior officials need therefore to be rigorous with Ministers and their teams to ensure their messaging supports negotiating aims rather than feeds the tabloids. The latter is tempting, but rather noticeable in a city that reads the UK media as part of being surprisingly anglophile – an opportunity but also another challenge.
Note that all of this applies whatever the red lines the UK might apply, though they will determine the scope for agreement. Successful negotiations are about finding the mutually acceptable space rather than forcing the other side to concede. It is for this reason that the internal negotiation is all important in determining the specific objectives and red lines, but must be conducted with a realistic view of the other side and careful use of what the EU is asking for.
Returning to the power imbalance though, there is no getting away from this, something which also means that the UK idea of special deals is never going to work. For this reason, the UK needs to pay particular attention to comparable trade relations such as with Switzerland, while noting specifics such as in these cases the EU demand for movement of people being central.
None of this is easy, but no third country ever found dealing with the EU easy, not least because its design is to consolidate asks in a mostly impregnable form to outsiders, no matter whether individual actors would do it differently. Negotiating positions formed in the Brussels bubble are typically tested across the Commission and Council before ever getting to a third country. Whether or not you like the EU doesn’t enter into the matter, they look after their own interests, and third countries will always struggle.
That then is the UK’s ultimate challenge as a third country, in understanding that everything changes when you are not in the club. Influencing from outside is a lengthy and somewhat tedious process, but also an essential part of negotiations. So far that has barely happened, and until it does this essential relationship will continue to be a UK frustration.
