Starmer, who opposed Brexit, has been adamant that Britain will not rejoin the EU in his lifetime. But he used Thursday’s summit to begin patching things up after years of wrangling over the terms of Britain’s exit.
In his opening speech at Blenheim Palace, Starmer told the gathering: “We want to work with you all to reset relationships, rediscover our common interest and renew the bonds of trust and friendship that adorn the fabric of European life.”
At his closing press conference, Starmer said: “I am proud to leave this summit with stronger relationships across Europe.”
It may be an exaggeration to say what was achieved in a day of photoshoots, breakout sessions and bilateral meetings that resembled speed dating. But Starmer got some points for trying.
After Prime Minister Boris Johnson threatened to renege on the Brexit deal and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak threatened to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, won nods of approval for pledging “deep respect for international law”.
European leaders have spoken warmly about the rapprochement. French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters: “This is a great opportunity to start from scratch.”
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said: “We have the highest expectations” for a “new relationship” with Britain under Starmer.
Irish leader Simon Harris said he was “delighted” to see Britain wanting a closer relationship with Europe, calling Starmer a “changemaker”.
Some moments at Blenheim Palace presented an alternate universe in which Brexit never happened. Except the scars are still there.
Illegal immigration, in particular, remains a point of tension.
At the summit, Starmer said Britain would “review its strategy” and work with European partners to put people smugglers “out of business.” He also announced £84 million ($109 million) for Africa and the Middle East to tackle the root causes of illegal immigration.
It is not about what to do with people who manage to cross the Channel from France in small boats. Previous British governments wanted to send back to Rwanda asylum seekers who entered the country illegally. Starmer has abandoned that idea. But it does bring to the fore the need for a better deal with France.
Asked at the summit whether he would accept a migration deal with Starmer, Macron replied, somewhat dismissively: “There is no miracle solution.”
The French leader said: “We know the situation, we are doing our best, we have improved the situation in recent years and we will follow up.”
The European Political Community meetings were conceived by Macron, a proponent of multilateralism, as a way to bring the EU closer to its neighbours – without going so far as to admit new members.
Summits allow leaders to engage in dialogue with each other, but are not intended to produce “outcomes” or joint statements. In this sense, participation in these summits presents little risk.
But Macron’s ability to steer Europe toward greater cooperation – and to assert himself as the continent’s de facto leader – has been limited by his movement’s back-to-back defeats in European Parliament elections and snap elections to the French National Assembly.
Meanwhile, European leaders have been rattled and angered by Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who has used the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union as a pretext to travel to Moscow, Beijing and Mar-a-Lago on a self-proclaimed “peace mission.”
The Hungarian leader wrote in a letter this week that he believed former President Donald Trump would win the November election and that Europe should rethink its approach to war accordingly.
Trump’s choice of Sen. J.D. Vance (Ohio) as his running mate has heightened concerns in some European capitals that the political wind is shifting and that it will be harder to rally allies around Ukraine. Vance, like Trump, appears to think the West has exaggerated the threat posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and has warned against additional U.S. military aid.
“I don’t think Vladimir Putin is an existential threat to Europe,” Vance said at the Munich Security Conference in February. “And to the extent that he is,” he continued, it shows that “Europe needs to play a more aggressive role in its own security.”
In the corridors of Thursday’s summit, speakers said their bosses would likely discuss privately what a second Trump administration might mean for Europe.
European leaders, anxious not to antagonize the former U.S. president, have generally been careful not to criticize him publicly. Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was “not afraid” of a second Trump presidency.
At the summit, sitting to Starmer’s right, Zelensky warned his European counterparts to be on their guard against Putin. “He might try to approach you, or he might approach some of your partners individually, trying to tempt you or put pressure on you to blackmail you into betraying the others.”
Whatever the challenges in Europe, the summit seemed a perfect opportunity for Starmer to turn the page on the ousted Conservative governments of the last 14 years that have often fought and belittled the EU.
“We’re already seeing a much better tone,” said Catherine Barnard, an expert on European politics at Cambridge University. She said on the British side there was “if not humility, at least not arrogance, and I think that’s probably appreciated.”
Just days after David Lammy became foreign secretary, Britain’s top diplomat travelled to Germany, Poland and Sweden to meet his counterparts.
Britain would begin to mend ties with the EU by prioritising security talks, analysts say. Labour may want to broaden the definition of security to include areas such as energy, climate, artificial intelligence and migration.
“One of the great things about security is that no one really knows what security actually means,” Barnard said. It’s a “very broad concept.”
Anand Menon, professor of politics at King’s College London, noted that the summit gave Starmer the opportunity to secure an unprecedented series of bilateral meetings.
There were poolside shots of Starmer walking with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the palace gardens and sharing a smirk with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk – who, as European Council president in 2019, said there was a “special place in hell” for “those who pushed Brexit without even a sketch of a plan for how to get it done safely”.
Menon doubts Starmer is ‘massively personally committed to a substantially closer relationship with the EU’
“They absolutely want to be on good terms. They think that the competition that characterized relations under the Conservatives was stupid and counterproductive. Absolutely.”
But Starmer has no intention of repeating the shoulder-to-shoulder relationship with Europe of his 1990s predecessor, Tony Blair.
“The change in tone is very important, very significant and very noticeable. On the merits, I think we will see much, much less of it,” he said.
Rauhala reported from Brussels and Adam from London.
News Source : www.washingtonpost.com
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