Sir Keir Starmer cannot sidestep Brussels as he seeks to improve the UK’s post-Brexit ties with the EU, officials in the bloc have warned after the British prime minister’s trips to Berlin and Paris.
In the last few days Starmer met German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron in the latest flurry of diplomacy with EU leaders since he entered Downing Street last month.
During the two-day tour he talked up his proposed UK-EU “reset” and emphasised his desire for “a closer relationship on a number of fronts, including the economy, including defence, including exchanges”.
However, he also reiterated his red lines on Brexit, which include no UK re-entry to the EU single market or customs union, or the return of free movement.
Within the bounds of these strictures, EU diplomats said there was little scope to improve ties with the UK.
EU member states had some “wriggle room” to allow easier access for British workers and students and industrial collaboration, one diplomat said.
“But you can only get a reset by going to Brussels. The red lines haven’t changed. Something needs to give on the UK side if it wants to restore the relationship,” they added.
The UK’s attempts this week to talk up the breadth and depth of a new bilateral treaty being negotiated with Germany, which both sides hope to finalise by early 2025, raised eyebrows in the EU.
German officials dismissed a suggestion by Downing Street that the two nations would discuss “market access” as part of the treaty, highlighting how the single market and trade were EU competencies, not national ones.
One said the treaty would not change anything covered by the EU-UK post-Brexit deals.
“A visit to Germany is not a game-changer,” said one EU official, adding: “There’s a huge focus on the bilateral dimension between the UK and Germany or France, but the EU is composed of 27 states and of course the sole interlocutor if you want to reset relations is not Berlin, Paris, Rome or Tallinn — it’s Brussels.”
The official said it was “very good news” the UK was pitching a “reboot” of relations with the EU, but repeated the bloc’s line that any British proposals that threatened to jeopardise the single market would be “tricky” to take forward.
Starmer is expected to meet European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen before the end of the year.
The EU’s main ambition regarding the UK is a youth mobility scheme, with a proposal made by the bloc in April. It also wants Britain to rejoin the Erasmus student exchange programme to allow its citizens to study in the UK more cheaply.
The EU’s offer this spring elicited a cold response from Labour officials, then in opposition, who said they viewed youth mobility as synonymous with free movement. But some Labour figures, including London mayor Sadiq Khan, are pushing for a deal.
This week Starmer said he has “no plans” to negotiate a formal youth mobility scheme, but did not explicitly rule out launching talks on one in future.
The previous UK Conservative government offered bilateral mobility deals to several states including Germany, which prompted the commission to table the EU-wide proposal. Officials do not rule out some member states being able to go it alone if EU-wide progress proves impossible.
One of the Starmer government’s priorities is a new UK-EU security pact “to strengthen co-operation on the threats we face”.
The EU views the current informal co-operation between the bloc and the UK on defence and security as working well — with co-ordination on sanctions, Ukraine and China taking place via the G7, Nato and other forums.
However, EU officials said the bloc would be amenable to formalising a more structured dialogue, as it does with the US.
Following years of tensions under the Conservatives, the new Starmer government believes there is mileage in overhauling the tone of UK-EU relations and has criticised the “botched” Brexit deal negotiated by former prime minister Boris Johnson.
Starmer said after meeting Macron on Thursday that the pair had discussed “the wider reset” with the EU, as well as developments in Ukraine and the Middle East, plus bilateral trade, illegal migration and security issues.
The British prime minister described “growing the economy” as the “number one mission” of the UK-EU reboot.
Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe think-tank, said Starmer’s warmer rhetoric on UK-EU relations was “desirable” and would genuinely “smooth the wheels of diplomacy” by making it easier for politicians and officials on both sides to work together.
But he added the UK and the EU were playing a “defensive” game and it was too early to see how it could lead to “substantive” change in the relationship.
Ahead of the UK election, Labour’s specific demands regarding the EU included a veterinary deal, an agreement on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, and greater ease for UK artists to tour within the bloc — proposals which were criticised as underwhelming.
Labour’s demands were “massively unambitious” and of “trivial” economic scale, Menon said, but “despite that, they might be quite hard to get”.