Keir Starmer to hold talks with the EU on defence co-operation

Sir Keir Starmer will on Thursday accept an invitation to hold talks on defence co-operation with the EU, in the first such meeting between a British prime minister and the bloc’s 27 leaders since Brexit.

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

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

On Thursday he will discuss his invitation to Starmer to attend dinner with EU leaders on February 3 at an informal retreat in Belgium on security matters. “The prime minister will accept the invitation,” one British official said.

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

Costa and Starmer will also work on dates for an EU-UK summit in the first half of 2025, which will be the focal point of efforts to “reset” post-Brexit ties, including lowering barriers between the two sides.

But officials in Brussels stressed it was too early to enter detailed talks on the reset of relations. The EU has postponed the adoption of a negotiating mandate for what it now calls a “youth experience scheme”.

Costa is expected to have an informal discussion about political developments, including in the Middle East, one EU official said.

“It’s worth noting that, in the current geopolitical context, it will be a moment to focus on the fact that the EU and UK have a common stance on many topics, such as Ukraine,” the person said.

The meeting comes amid rising disquiet among the pro-Europe wing of the governing UK Labour party at the level of ambition for the EU-UK “reset”, particularly over improving trade ties and striking a deal to enable 18 to 30-year-olds to live, work and study in each others’ countries.

Starmer is expected to sign a new security partnership accord with the EU early in the new year. But he has been notably cautious on the trade and mobility elements of the reset, repeatedly ruling out a deal on youth mobility.

Meanwhile voters in the UK and major EU countries are more open to strengthening EU-UK ties than politicians on both sides, particularly in light of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential race, according to a new survey.

Some 55 per cent of Britons supported a “closer” relationship with the EU, compared with 10 per cent who wanted it to be more distant, showed a poll published by the European Council on Foreign Relations on Thursday.

There was also widespread support among major EU states for an EU-UK rapprochement, with more than 40 per cent of Germans, Poles, Spaniards and Italians backing closer ties. French respondents were more reluctant, with just 34 per cent in favour.

The YouGov and Datapraxis poll based on 9,278 respondents across six countries also found a very clear preference among Britons for prioritising relations with Brussels over Washington following Trump’s return to the White House.

Asked if the UK should prioritise relations with “our European neighbours” or with the US, 50 per cent of respondents chose Europe and 17 per cent selected America, with the remainder not expressing a preference.

The EU has also been highly circumspect in its approach to the reset, warning member states in internal documents that the bloc should stick to the “no cherry picking” mantra that underpinned original talks after 2017.

However the poll for the think-tank found that respondents in EU countries were more willing to accept that the UK be granted “special access” to the EU single market in order to strengthen the strategic partnership.

ECFR director Mark Leonard said the polling showed Brexit-era divisions were fading, adding: “Governments now need to catch up with public opinion and offer an ambitious reset.”