When it comes to Europe, UK is in the same position as Azerbaijan

Some suggest the Blenheim summit offers a great stage for the UK’s new prime minister to launch his plans for better EU-UK relations, especially his aim for some sort of EU-UK security pact. It’s certainly a good moment for photo opportunities, meetings and quite possibly a few bilateral mini-announcements.

But European leaders are not turning up just to fete Keir Starmer’s election win or mend a few of the broken pieces from Brexit. And there are plenty of other political tensions around, from Hungary’s two-week-old already-controversial presidency of the Council of the EU to Donald Trump’s pick of an isolationist running mate days after the assassination attempt on him.

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The EPC is essentially a talking shop. There are no written summit conclusions or joint statements. There will be plenary meetings of all the leaders, plus break-out groups, covering topics including security, migration, democracy, and energy. There should be a final press conference presided over by Keir Starmer.

That will be a step forward from the previous summit in Granada last October, when the host, Spain, cancelled the final press conference due to upset at the UK and Italy convening an unscheduled working group on migration. Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan didn’t even show up. Efforts to improve relations, in the sidelines of the summit, between countries at loggerheads, such as Serbia and Kosovo, have proved ineffective (Kosovo’s premier, Albin Kurti, also didn’t turn up last time).

And the next summit will be led, in November, by Hungary’s endlessly provocative prime minister, Viktor Orbán. The European Commission has just cancelled the usual group visit of the Commission president and all the commissioners to Hungary, at the start of Orbán’s holding the rotating presidency, in the face of his recent "peace-making" trips to Russia, China and to the US to chat with Donald Trump, all way beyond his limited brief.

So, the EPC is an opportunity for Keir Starmer to present a strong image of a new, constructive, strategic UK to the rest of Europe. But there are bigger European and global political challenges out there. President Zelenskyy is expected to attend. Ukraine will certainly be a big part of the security discussion, Gaza probably less so given starkly different views around the summit table.

And the purpose and sustainability of the EPC itself also needs to be positively driven forward by Keir Starmer at Blenheim. This may prove tricky. The aim of the gathering is to bring countries together beyond the European Union (Russia and Belarus are not invited). But almost all those attending have strong connections to the EU which sits, inevitably if informally, at the EPC’s core. Twenty-seven countries are EU member states. There are nine candidate countries (though Georgia’s accession process was halted last week by the EU in the face of its authoritarian, and Russian, turn). Then there are the European Economic Area members including Norway and Iceland, Turkey with its customs union with the EU, Switzerland with its own deep bilateral deal.

The UK, with its hard Brexit trade and cooperation agreement, is on the outer tier of relations to the EU, compared to those with access to the EU’s single market or customs union, or currently in an accession process. The UK shares this outer circle position with Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Despite all this, the prospect of the new Labour Government working to improve EU-UK relations, establish a serious, structured format and focus for security relations broadly defined (possibly including climate too) is positive. EU leaders are likely to welcome it and are waiting for Starmer to set out an initial outline of how the UK wants to change and improve relations.

Ironically, this is what Theresa May aimed to do too. Her initial Withdrawal Agreement with the EU aimed to establish a formal security framework. And Starmer shares her red lines from back then. But May’s tormented failure to get her EU deal through Parliament in 2019, resulting in her defenestration by Boris Johnson, is many miles away politically from what Keir Starmer can now credibly, calmly offer the EU.

The new European Parliament throws up complications (Image: PA)

So, a new, substantive shift in EU-UK relations is on the cards. And, in the face of a deeply unstable geopolitical environment, including the possibility of a Trump presidency, deeper security relations look important. One negative impact of Brexit, in the last four years, has been ever more limited, shallow contact between UK and EU politicians, officials, and diplomats at all levels. A security pact can counter this and bring the two closer together again.

But there are limits. Keir Starmer has ruled out rejoining the EU, its customs union and single market. Free movement is off the cards (and pre-election hints that Scotland might be able to run a partially separate migration policy seem wrong). The EU will welcome closer security co-operation. But the UK’s external influence is limited. It cannot influence how the EU deals with renegade member states such as Hungary, how the EU progresses Ukraine’s accession process or how and whether the now larger, far-right contingent in the European Parliament starts to weaken the European Green Deal.

The Blenheim summit should be a good European launch pad for Keir Starmer. But where EU-UK relations go next will play out in the establishment of a strategic security partnership, and in detailed negotiations on everything from a veterinary deal on agricultural trade to mutual recognition of professional qualifications.

The EPC as a useful networking, discussion forum will continue. But the real hard work of giving substance to the UK’s new European strategy lies elsewhere.