Five years since leaving European UnionBritain is still negotiating Britain’s exit from the European Union. This time next year, Britain will continue to negotiate Britain’s exit from the European Union. And for every year expected after that.
This is not a “reset” comment in the relationships that Starmer identified in Brussels Summit this week. It is a statement of the fact that Britain is linked to the European Union by the forces of geography, economics and political geography, and that these factors did not stop existence when the club’s membership was ended. Since the European project is always evolving in response to global events, Britain will constantly seek to adjust the conditions of the relationship.
Starmer is just the first among many. His ambitions also be relatively modest. He chose to work in a hidden position, in an attempt to expand cooperation in Brussels without rubbing against European sensitivities in the country.
The Prime Minister’s opening offer is A new security partnershipAnd it is something the European Union wants from Britain and is not covered by the Trade and Cooperation Agreement Johnson signed in 2020.
Close cooperation on defense as the first easy step in a new relationship, building confidence and serving a mutual interest aims, without entering into the re -settlement of economic divorce. Most European Union governments agree with this approach. They see many reasons in a frightening and volatile world to receive the introduction of Starmer with open arms.
Russia launches the war of regional aggression on the eastern side of the continent. Kremlin manages systematic sabotage campaigns and malignant effects to destabilize European democracies. Donald Trump blows the foundations of the Atlantic alliance. It is not yet clear whether any job that the American president sees NATO, but his talk about Denmark, who waives Greenland and Canada, has become the 51st state of the United States shows that the new White House regime has no concept of relations based on mutual interests or alignment with values. Where there were treaties, there is now a protective platelet similar to the mafia. Building a coach in the oval office, or taking a penalty for definitions.
Britain’s military capabilities and intelligence are not a substitute for American guarantees that have gained European security since the mid -twentieth century. But they are tremendous according to the European Union standards and respect the Pentagon (or at least they have not been rejected as relevant). Who gives my authors exhaustion Politics is a glimmer of hope that London will be able to revive its old function as the broker’s voice between Washington and Brussels.
A new and optimistic concept is presented after Britain’s exit from the European Union of UK and the European Union: A closer partnership in the areas of collective strategic interest-defense, energy security, migration, and climate-begins a virtuous cycle of confidence, which leads to a decrease in friction in trade and the distribution of profits Growth from cross -border trade. With the exception that the second decide must be achieved without staining the sacred red lines that prohibit the return to the unified market or the customs union. This imposes a familiar roof on any gains from precise economic integration.
The basic equation has not changed. It is priced in European markets aligned with European bases, and it is not a selection counter.
There are some flexible margins. It seems that everyone agrees that a veterinary agreement to soften agricultural exports is available, for example. There are precedents for selective participation in the unified market. Switzerland has a dedicated deal, but it includes contributions to the European Union budget and freedom of movement – indescribable concessions in the current climate of British policy.
This is the aversion to anything from which the smell of the liberal immigration policy that the ministers publicly flourishes when mentioning until a limited time has occurred, controlled by the quotas Youth transportation scheme. (Indeed, some say that the deal can easily be done on this result. Others say that the Minister of the Interior is unpopular, and there was no unwillingness or unable to judge.) The demands of the opening of the European Union in talks. Another one, which prompted him to the top of the French President’s agenda, Emmanuel Macron, is to reach British fisheries.
Thus, the elegant sequence that aims to a somewhat controversial defensive agreement opens the door into a larger deal that turns into other intertwined negotiations from Britain’s exit from the European Union. Starmer wants to talk about a new chapter in a partnership via channels, but it turns out that he must first quarrel over COD.
This is not frustrated by the Prime Minister. There are voices in the European Commission and National Governments that urge a less and more creative bureaucratic conversation about a future role for Britain in the wider European project. The UK has a friend in Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister who holds the periodic presidency of the European Union Council.
But Starmer did not give his continental allies to work with them. The comfort wave that is no longer forced to deal with conservatives and enthusiasm with the possibility of a more refundable party government has calmed down. There is permanent gratitude because Starmer’s Download Street is not in worship of the crazy anti -fractures, but the prime minister’s ability is a different type of barrier. In Whitehall, it is known that it doubts abstract and delicacy ideas, which are considered deviations from practical works to solve problems. That characteristic, which friends see as a wonderful aversion to the splendor and Dimgogger, leaves the masses – local and foreign – is not sure how the list of individual policies collects to form a larger image.
European Union relations can be managed without such a thing. The current Brexit deal already has a timetable of the final dates for implementation, reviews and renovations. The negotiating train will remain in overcoming the line, regardless of whether the Prime Minister has a fixed destination. Some officials and politicians, in Whiteon and Brussels, believe that more can be achieved without one; These major visions and high rhetoric increases the political temperature only, interfering with a process that works better when they are boring and technically, when no one pays attention.
This is somewhat true – a point reached soon when Trump returned to the White House. There is now a national interest and moral necessity in Britain that enhance alliances governed by law and treaty, not coercion and blackmail. Urgent mutual attention pushes the European Union and Britain towards a common ground through a set of issues. However, the pledge of institutional stagnation and political shame pulls the other direction. Supporters of Europeans left the hope of pumping political will and imagination, pending an achievement from the leadership, afraid of running out of time.
