Keir Starmer to negotiate with the EU on defense cooperation

Sir Keir Starmer on Thursday accepted an invitation to hold talks on security with the EU, in the first meeting of its kind between a British prime minister and the bloc’s 27 leaders since Brexit.

António Costa, the new president of the European Council, has issued a symbolic invitation to Starmer at a meeting in Downing Street, in a sign of improved relations between the two sides.

Costa’s meeting with Starmer comes just 12 days after he took office in Brussels, signaling that the former Portuguese prime minister wants to prioritize the bloc’s relationship with the UK.

On Thursday he will discuss his invitation to Starmer to attend a dinner with EU leaders on February 3 during a trip to Belgium on security issues. “The Prime Minister has accepted the invitation,” a British official said.

Starmer will be the first UK Prime Minister to meet 27 since Britain left the EU in 2020, although he has attended European Political Community meetings like his Conservative predecessors Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

Costa and Starmer will also work on the dates of the EU-UK summit in the first half of 2025, which will be at the heart of efforts to “renew” post-Brexit relations, including reducing barriers between the two sides.

But officials in Brussels stressed that it was too early to talk in detail about restoring relations. The EU has put on hold the implementation of a consultation process on what it now calls a “youth information system”.

Costa is expected to hold the latest political talks, including in the Middle East, an EU official said.

“It is worth noting that, in the current situation, it will be time to consider that the EU and the UK have similar views on many topics, such as Ukraine,” said the person.

The conference comes amid turmoil among the pro-Europe wing of the ruling UK Labor party over the level of “restructuring” the EU-UK, particularly in improving the trade deal and making deals to help 18- to 30-year-olds live, work and study in other countries.

Starmer is expected to sign a new defense deal with the EU early in the new year. But he has been very careful about the business and the movement of recycling, repeatedly opposing the union in the youth movement.

Currently voters in the UK and major EU countries are more willing to support the EU-UK alliance than politicians on both sides, mainly because of the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential race, according to a new survey.

About 55 percent of Britons supported a “closer” relationship with the EU, compared to 10 percent who wanted a more distant one, showed a survey published by the European Council on Foreign Relations on Thursday.

There was also widespread support among major EU countries for EU-UK cooperation, with more than 40 percent of Germans, Poles, Spaniards and Italians strongly in favor. French respondents were more reluctant, with only 34 percent in favor.

A YouGov and Datapraxis survey of 9,278 respondents in six countries also found a preference among Britons for putting relations with Brussels ahead of Washington following Trump’s return to the White House.

When asked whether the UK should prioritize relations with its “European neighbours” or with the US, 50 per cent of respondents chose Europe and 17 per cent chose America, with the remainder undecided.

The EU has also been critical of the resettlement process, warning member states in internal documents that the bloc must stick to the “no cherry-picking” slogan that underpinned the first negotiations after 2017.

However, the survey found that respondents in EU countries were ready to accept that the UK should be given “special access” to the EU single market in order to promote cooperation.

ECFR director Mark Leonard said the polls showed Brexit-era divisions are narrowing, adding: “Governments now need to heed public opinion and re-establish opportunities.”