BRUSSELS — Brussels had high expectations for Keir Starmer’s Brexit reset. Now it’s adjusted them — downward.
Six months of red lines and rejection have dashed hopes that the new U.K. prime minister really wants to walk back the more extreme elements of the Tory Brexit settlement.
While officials and diplomats still believe improvements to the cross-channel relationship are possible, nobody expects them to be game-changers. All expect them to take time.
London’s knock-backs on visas for young people and student exchanges sapped early optimism in the EU capital. Red lines on the single market, customs union and free movement haven’t helped either.
In Brussels, frustration gradually set in at first. Now it’s moving to acceptance.
“The substance is not there but it’s not like anything’s breaking because of it,” one EU diplomat told POLITICO. Like others quoted in this article, they were granted anonymity to speak freely.
“We are quite content with the status quo — it would be nice to have more but we’re not desperately missing anything.”
A second person, an EU official, said that there was now a realisation in Brussels that expectations were too high when Starmer took office last year.
This had led to some becoming frustrated at the new government’s slow pace and Euroskeptic outlook, they accepted.
But with challenges like Donald Trump, AI and the climate emergency testing governments across Europe, nobody on the other side of the Channel has had time to sit and obsess over what London does or doesn’t want.
“Every single capital has moved on, and nobody has been discussing as a priority the relationship with London. Of course it remains important but within a long list of important things,” a third person, a senior EU diplomat, said.
The first diplomat quoted above added: “I currently spend about 10 minutes a week thinking about the U.K.”
Confidence booster
It is in this context that Starmer on Monday will meet EU leaders at an informal “retreat” in Brussels.
The gathering, originally slated to be held at a red-brick chateau in the Walloon countryside, has been belatedly relocated to Egmont Palace in Brussels’ diplomatic district after security at the rural location was deemed a “nightmare.”
The 27 presidents and prime ministers will spend the day discussing European security and the war in Ukraine together — before Starmer joins them for dinner and gives some U.K. input.
The day will be less a U.K.-EU summit — and more the U.K. as one of several items on the agenda at an EU meeting. While the other leaders are talking, Starmer will keep himself busy by swinging by NATO headquarters on the outskirts of the city, where he will meet with general secretary Mark Rutte and hold his own press conference.
The last EU diplomat quoted above described Starmer’s attendance at the EU meeting as a “confidence booster” for the “longer trajectory” of resetting relations. Both Brussels and London say they want to do more on defense and security, and the topic is widely regarded as the easiest on which to find common ground.
But expectations that the meeting — called a “retreat” to emphasize its informal nature — will produce actual movement on the U.K.-EU front are relatively low. As in other policy areas, London has said it wants a security deal — but has been slow to explain what that means in practice.
EU officials complain that this theme is repeated across policy briefs. The new U.K. government has some broad ideas to improve the U.K.-EU relationship: mutual recognition of professional qualifications, reducing barriers for touring British artists, and a phytosanitary agreement to reduce border friction for trade in agricultural products.
But six months in, London hasn’t outlined exactly what any of these would entail in practice. Asked what model the U.K.’s preferred phytosanitary agreement might take, Brexit minister Nick Thomas-Symonds would only tell a parliamentary committee in January that it would be “bespoke.”
What’s more, since December the minister has pointedly taken to referring to the Labour manifesto commitments on Europe as “examples” of things that might be achieved — muddying the question of objectives still further.
Thomas-Symonds, who at the same committee hearing accepted that the “steep part” of negotiations had not yet begun, will also be in Brussels next week, speaking alongside his EU counterpart Maroš Šefčovič at Tuesday’s annual U.K–EU Forum conference. One U.K. official said the minister’s address to the conference would focus on how the government would “only do things that are in the national interest.”
European diplomats are conveying their frustrations with Britain’s stance to contacts back in the U.K. One British person who speaks regularly to the EU institutions said: “If you talk to anyone in Europe, they ask — ‘what do you actually want’?” A second asked of the Cabinet Office’s unit for European relations: “What are they actually doing?”
U.K. officials argue it is natural that some ambassadors and foreign ministers will not know the full details of discussions because, they say, they are taking place directly with the Commission.
Nurturing and watering
The senior EU diplomat quoted above warns not to expect an “epiphany” from Starmer’s attendance on Monday — but said it is an important staging post for the renewed relationship nonetheless.
“A lot of people would like things to happen immediately. That said, that’s not how the world of international relations often works, nor the world of politics,” they told POLITICO, adding: “I think we actually are seeing progress.”
The diplomat pointed to the recent appointment of British negotiator Michael Ellam and a planned full-fat U.K.-EU summit later in the spring as signs that change was in the air — however slow and limited in scope.
As for those earlier high expectations? Perhaps it was necessary to adopt a “much more pragmatic approach to where the [U.K.-EU] relationship is going,” they said.
“There is a growing awareness that this is a plant that needs nurturing and watering and that we are gradually going in that direction.”
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