Jake Benford / Dec 2025
Photo: Shutterstock
Anglo-German ties have shifted from post-Brexit fatigue to more deliberate strategic cooperation. Defence coordination is tightening under new agreements, while energy initiatives — especially in the North Sea — offer a second anchor. The incentives are strong: Germany draws on the UK’s operational strengths and energy potential, and the UK on Germany’s industrial scale, investment capacity and EU anchoring. But real impact hinges on three conditions: turning alignment into new capability, accelerating Europe’s energy build-out and easing the EU–UK frictions that still constrain cooperation.
President Steinmeier’s state visit to the UK comes amid a visible warming of relations, reflected in intense ministerial engagement: Prime Minister Starmer, Defence Secretary Healey and Foreign Secretary Cooper were in Berlin only last month, across formats such as the E3, the Group of Five and the new Friendship and Bilateral Cooperation Treaty.
This flurry of activity is partly a product of Europe’s new diplomatic landscape, which increasingly relies on flexible groupings like the E3, Weimar Plus and the Ukraine coalitions — but it also signals a deeper bilateral convergence. What was a drifting post-Brexit relationship is now taking on a more purposeful shape, though its significance will depend on what London and Berlin can deliver.
As Europe confronts mounting security and industrial pressures, the value of this alignment turns on whether it can generate usable defence capability, support energy–industrial expansion and reduce EU–UK regulatory friction. Meeting those tests will begin with what London and Berlin can sustain at home.
Both governments are attempting deep shifts in their economic models. Germany is refitting its industrial engine for a world shaped by innovation, climate constraints and geopolitical competition. The UK is trying to complement its strong services base with revived industrial capacity after decades of weak investment and productivity.
Both confront electorates unsettled by economic transition, rising living costs and pressures from right-wing populism. Where they differ sharply is in fiscal capacity— Germany can mobilise large-scale public investment while the UK operates under far tighter constraints. But both must juggle domestic adjustment with external credibility at a time when Europe faces overlapping crises of security and competitiveness.
Against this backdrop, defence cooperation has become the most practical anchor of bilateral momentum, with energy and economic resilience forming the next frontier. Underlying this convergence are structural incentives: Germany benefits from the UK’s expeditionary posture and weapons expertise, while the UK gains from Germany’s industrial depth and influence in EU rulemaking.
Germany’s Zeitenwende of 2022 was stronger on intent than on substance, offering limited openings for the UK. Almost four years on, British officials increasingly see Germany as a strategic anchor for Europe, a serious defence actor and a potential industrial powerhouse.
The 2024 Trinity House Agreement on Defence created a structured mechanism for joint capability development, procurement coordination and industrial integration. The broader Kensington Treaty reinforces this, emphasising European capacity building and further reducing previous ambiguity about Germany’s strategic direction.
Political alignment alone does not build deterrence - capabilities do. Europe still produces too little, too slowly and too expensively, and cross-border procurement remains rare.
Yet the complementarities are strong: Germany brings industrial scale and financial weight; the UK adds technological depth, operational experience and strategic permissiveness. These map directly onto Europe’s capability gaps.
The current focus is on Trinity’s “lighthouse projects”: German investment in a UK artillery-barrel plant, new Boxer variants and deeper precision-strike cooperation. Defence-tech firms are expanding into the UK, attracted by more flexible procurement rules. Industry views the new Ministerial Group on Equipment and Capability Co-operation (MECC) as the most promising mechanism for turning intent into procurement.
A more distant horizon would be bridging two competing next-generation fighter projects - FCAS (Franco-German-Spanish) and GCAP (UK-Japan-Italy). With FCAS under strain, future convergence is speculative but more likely if today’s cooperation embeds shared habits and reduces political friction.
These developments still fall short of Europe’s needs but help revive cooperative practices and industrial links that have atrophied for decades. Joint action will be hard as long as thinking remains internal, spending national and decisions political. But in a slow system, even small steps matter.
Energy is emerging as the second major pillar of the bilateral axis. The UK holds one of Europe’s largest offshore-wind and hydrogen resource bases, while Germany faces the continent’s steepest industrial-decarbonisation challenge. Both aim to turn the North Sea into a shared renewable-energy hub.
The Kensington Treaty commits them to joint development of North Sea renewables, hydrogen infrastructure and green industrial cooperation. The Energy and Climate Partnership complements this with plans for new interconnectors and a hybrid cable-storage project.
The trajectory of cooperation will depend not least on how the regulatory environment evolves. A future of deep strategic coordination would see aligned standards and an integrated hydrogen and CO₂-storage system across the North Sea basin. A more fragmented path would limit scale and raise costs as divergent rules persist. A security-driven acceleration is also possible: geopolitical shocks, particularly disruptions to global energy markets, could force faster coordination even in the absence of regulatory alignment.
At present, cooperation sits uneasily between the first two scenarios. Slow permitting, unaligned hydrogen standards and uncertain CO₂-storage rules remain obstacles. Many of these are regulatory rather than political, and will require more sustained coordination given they sit at the EU–UK boundary.
Interestingly, the broader industrial outlook – beyond defence and energy - is improving: A recent business survey shows firms see opportunities above all in dual-use technology, advanced manufacturing and life sciences.
The UK–German rapprochement fits a broader trend of bilateralism and minilateralism complementing EU structures. The EU itself increasingly relies on “mini-deals” to overcome unanimity constraints. Kensington and Trinity fit into this pattern, giving the UK structured bilateral access to Europe’s security core whilst offering Germany a complementary partner to France.
The boundaries of bilateralism are defined by EU frameworks, but the degree of constraint varies sharply by sector. In defence, the EU is only beginning to develop tools to support joint procurement and industrial strengthening; questions of third-country access remain delicate, as shown by the breakdown of UK talks on SAFE. Its influence would grow only if Brussels significantly expanded its defence role — still a major open question.
In energy, by contrast, the EU’s role is already foundational. Market design, grid integration and regulatory alignment fall squarely within Single Market rules, making EU frameworks decisive for everything from hydrogen standards to North Sea cooperation. The ongoing negotiations over UK participation in the EU’s electricity market underscore this complexity: even well-aligned bilateral initiatives ultimately depend on navigating intricate, Brussels-shaped regulatory terrain.
Can this bilateral momentum shift Europe’s trajectory? Its significance lies less in sweeping fixes than in rebuilding habits, links and confidence. London and Berlin have rebuilt trust, created institutional machinery and aligned on defence and energy in ways that strengthen Europe where EU processes lag.
Yet France remains decisive. It shapes the direction of EU defence-industrial integration, guards access to key markets and retains the greatest political influence over Europe’s strategic posture. The success of the Anglo-German axis will therefore depend not only on what London and Berlin achieve together but also on whether Paris sees their cooperation as complementary to — rather than competitive with — the Franco-German core.
Measured against Europe’s needs, progress remains modest. But the trajectory is sound. A pattern of partial alignment among Europe’s major powers is emerging — most clearly on Ukraine and the need to expand Europe’s capacity to act. Differences endure - notably on migration and on economic openness - but structural incentives for cooperation are stronger than in the immediate post-Brexit period.
In a Europe struggling to turn ambition into capability, this movement matters. Whether it can shift outcomes will depend on three tests: delivering usable defence capability, accelerating Europe’s energy-industrial build-out and easing EU–UK regulatory friction. On these, only results will count.
