‘We need to think much bigger’: trade minister calls for greater ambition in UK-EU reset | Trade policy

It was all smiles and warm handshakes when the two men responsible for renegotiating Britain’s relationship with the EU met in Brussels this week.

As Maroš Šefčovič and Nick Thomas-Symonds, the UK minister for EU relations, shared the stage on the third floor of the vast European parliament building, they sought to show that the cross-Channel relationship was in a good place after years of acrimony.

Deep disappointment at the lack of progress on the “reset” of the relationship between the UK and the EU was evident both on stage and behind the scenes.

Šefčovič, the European trade commissioner, told MPs and MPs gathered at the EU-UK parliamentary partnership assembly (PPA) about the need to start afresh, but also hinted that more passion was needed in the next round of negotiations, reminding Brits in the room that a Swiss-style inclusive deal offered to former prime minister Boris Johnson was still on the table.

The next day, business secretary Chris Bryant, who went on a charm offensive in Paris, expressed disappointment with the “piecemeal” approach he inherited when he was appointed to the job in September.

Bryant insisted both sides need to be more assertive.

“I think we need to lift our eyes to the distant horizon and think in a much bigger, more ambitious way about what is possible,” he said, emphasizing the need for sectoral regulatory alignment that could restart exports for both parties, from medical devices to chemicals.

“This is the sentence I have been telling everyone in the department since I took office; [relationship] With the EU it’s not a series of policy decisions, it’s one big decision, it’s about how much you want to align with. So how will we achieve this?

This led to what UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves said in London later that day.Strategic imperative for deeper integration And in the political equivalent of three buses arriving at once, London mayor Sadiq Khan, Labour’s third figurehead, on Wednesday called on his party to contest the next general election on the promise of rejoining the EU.

Meanwhile, reset negotiations, which are baby steps from last year’s joint understanding when the EU and the UK agreed on a deal on youth mobility, agribusiness, energy and defence, are also in danger of stalling.

The EU’s insistence that EU citizens receive a house fee if they go to university in the UK has left talks on youth mobility deadlocked.

“There is a strong political will in EU member states to reach an agreement, but this issue has become very complicated,” said a person briefed on the talks.

Another added: “We still talk regularly but progress has been very slow due to this issue.”

A sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement would make a difference, but talks are progressing painfully slowly.

Bryant spoke to European Parliament lawmakers in Brussels on Tuesday and then to French business leaders in the palatial ballroom of the British residence in Paris on Wednesday. He noted that the UK is slow, but the EU is sometimes even slower; Although both parties agreed to open negotiations on the SPS last May, the European Commission did not receive authorization from member states until November.

“If we can get from one in 10 British businesses exporting to two in 10 or three in 10, like the French or Germans, that will radically transform our economic opportunities in the UK. That’s exactly what I’ve been focused on from the beginning,” he said.

But Bryant is pushing for a more defined approach to achieving that.

“Instead of doing this piece by piece, let’s do it [a deal on] SPS, let’s do the tuition fees, let’s do it [the student exchange programme] Erasmus. “And then it goes on forever, it bogs down and nobody remembers what we’re doing,” he said. “We’re doing all this policy by policy… we need to be a lot more focused.”

Bryant is one of many pushing for mutual recognition of professional qualifications and compromise for touring artists, among other issues such as eligibility in sectors where public health is at risk. There is also AI regulation and tuition fees for British students whose parents moved to the EU before Brexit; The agreement on house charges expires in 2028.

As Reeves points out, one solution is broader integration with the EU. In Brussels, Šefčovič said a Swiss-style comprehensive agreement was still on the table in the long term.

Rather than a patchwork of more than 100 bilateral agreements, Switzerland A series of agreements on March 2 In addition to the privileged access it already enjoys to the single market, it also covers health, food, space and electricity.

“Switzerland is of course possible, but it takes time,” Šefčovič told MPs and MPs in the PPA. He said the advantage of a comprehensive agreement was that it offered a “dynamic harmonization approach” to regulation so agreements could happen “faster” and “earlier”.

Asked in Paris whether this was something the UK would consider, Bryant said he suspected “any model that works in one country will not work in another” and added that he was “in favor of something being inclusive” with the EU.

Bryant also said he would like to see a common defense procurement strategy. “We need to take this seriously; we’ve done a really good job of co-operating on sanctions regarding Russia’s shadow fleet, but we’re still not where we need to go: defense procurement across the EU.”

The immediate pressure on the UK and EU is for youth mobility, SPS and other clauses to be agreed by July, when the second post-Brexit EU-UK summit is planned.

But the question facing Labor now is how far can it go from now on?

There is growing pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer from MPs to go further beyond defense and trade. In a new leaflet for the Fabians, some Labor figures have called for the prime minister to push for greater integration with the EU. These included London MP Stella Creasy, who threw her weight behind the Swiss model, and Labor select committee chair Liam Byrne, who called for cooperation on a range of issues including critical minerals and energy.

The next reset agenda could also include customs union talks, something many members of Starmer’s cabinet want to see. Starmer has so far rejected this as it would invalidate trade deals he has signed with the US and India.

But EU sources say they are open to reaching a deal on terms favorable enough to compensate Britain for lost trade as a result.

Post-Brexit trade relations are not easy, as the first year of the reset has shown. But Bryant said the important thing is to look up.

“Sometimes I worry that we get caught up in a funk, ‘oh, everything is so hard; how are we going to survive,'” he said, quoting Belgian rapper Stromae’s Mauvaise Journée about someone who insists on his right to be depressed from the comfort of his own couch.

“I guess we’re a bit like tightrope walkers, a bit obsessed with walking. [instead of focusing on the end of the rope]. And this doesn’t work. That’s when you fall.”