Brussels (The Brussels Morning Newspaper) – EU officials and diplomats question whether UK PM Keir Starmer really wants a Brexit reset.
UK PM Keir Starmer states he wants to “reset” Britain’s connection with Europe. But two months into his premiership, the EU is beginning to wonder whether he really means it. According to POLITICO, EU officials and diplomats have increasingly doubtful that — beyond warm oratory — the new U.K. prime minister is all that excited about walking back on the Brexit breach with Europe.
What concerns does the EU have about Starmer’s Brexit promises?
Starmer’s swift denial of EU priorities such as appointing a youth mobility scheme and rejoining the Erasmus exchange program has gone down poorly in EU capitals and is taking a toll on early positiveness about the new British government. Hopes were increased on the continent that the new PM would take a different direction to his Tory predecessors; in terms of rhetoric and mood music, the new U.K. strategy has been “relatively positive,” one senior EU official informed POLITICO.
How has Starmer’s rejection of EU priorities affected his rapport with Brussels?
“The problem, though, is people are starting to think it’s a bit of a facade because when you move onto specific portfolios — whether that’s youth mobility or Erasmus — the answer is always ‘no.” An EU diplomat expressed that the new government’s lack of interest in rejoining the Erasmus project in particular “did register in Brussels” and among member states. And it didn’t go down well.
Re-entry into the student exchange agenda is seen in the EU capital as the kind of low-hanging fruit a pro-European British administration would be expected to jump at. Officials stated they were surprised” by the snub. “Constructive rhetoric is all very nice but as long as fundamentally nothing alters in the U.K. position, I don’t see how the status quo changes,” the diplomat stated.
What’s behind the delay in Starmer’s meeting with von der Leyen?
PM Keir Starmer has yet to sit down with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is still busy setting together her new Commission and is unlikely to get it signed off by the EU Parliament until December. Strategies for the pair of leaders to get together in August or September have been moved back until later in the autumn or even winter amid a packed timetable in Brussels. The absence of a meeting isn’t a snub, EU officials urge. “Von der Leyen doesn’t have time to assemble with anyone at the moment, she’s got to put a college together,” the official quoted above stated, adding that “she would have absolutely nothing to say” until her commission was in business anyway.
