Keir Starmer’s government must spell out what it wants from a reset of Britain’s relationship with the European Union, the European Parliament’s lead MEP on the UK has said.
In his first interview since being elected chair of the European Parliament’s delegation to the EU-UK parliamentary partnership assembly earlier this month, Sandro Gozi, an Italian former European affairs minister, said there was potential for a reset with the Starmer government, which had shown “a change in attitude”.
“There is a possibility to enter into a new phase in our bilateral relationship,” said Gozi, a member of France’s Democratic Movement party, which is allied with President Emmanuel Macron’s MEPs.
The Italian politician said he was neither happy nor disappointed with the British government’s approach so far, and was in listening mode. “I think that it is the UK government who has to spell out what they mean with resetting,” he said.
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He hoped, he said, to see more co-operation on foreign policy and security, the green transition and artificial intelligence, but added: “It is the British side that must identify what are the possible items to tell us what we can do together.”
He was speaking before a working lunch between David Lammy and his EU counterparts in Luxembourg on Monday. Mr Lammy will not be the first UK foreign secretary to attend a meeting of the EU’s foreign affairs council since Brexit – Liz Truss was a guest at an emergency meeting in March 2022 soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – but it will be the first time the Labour minister has met all 27 EU ministers together.
The foreign secretary will also hold a bilateral meeting with the bloc’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, who chairs EU foreign ministers’ meetings.
A high-ranking EU official said: “Finally, I hope, we are normalising Brexit and now we can start a new chapter in the relationship with the United Kingdom.” The meeting would be “an important point of departure to strengthen foreign policy co-operation with the United Kingdom”, the official said. “There is an interest in security agreements. There are many things that we can do together.”
As part of the government’s plan to reset relations with the EU, Mr Lammy has sketched out a wide-ranging plan for a foreign policy and security pact with the EU covering the climate crisis, energy, pandemics and illegal migration.
The foreign secretary, however, is expected to discuss Ukraine and the Middle East with EU foreign ministers, rather than detailed talks on future agreements with the bloc. – Guardian
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