Two leaders will use meeting to foster co-operation on security and migration after period of frosty relations
UK prime minister Rishi Sunak and his French counterpart, president Emmanuel Macron, will in March attend a UK-France summit, the first of its kind in five years. Downing Street on Wednesday confirmed that Macron will host Sunak for a meeting to foster bilateral co-operation in areas such as climate and security.
The idea was initially discussed by the pair during their first phone call last October. The meeting, to be held on March 10, is a sign of thawing relations between Britain and key EU partners since Boris Johnson’s departure as prime minister last September. The relationship between France and Britain has been fraught in recent years with spats over fishing rights and illegal migration, and mistrust between Macron and Johnson.
Sunak hopes to use the summit to build co-operation on tackling migration across the Channel in small boats and to win support for a compromise on the vexed issue of post-Brexit trading rules for Northern Ireland. Settling the row over the so-called Northern Ireland protocol is key. The issue has brought the region’s Stormont government to a halt with the Democratic Unionist party boycotting the power-sharing executive and assembly until the dispute is resolved. Sunak and the EU are seeking to resolve the issue before the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday peace accord on April 10. Macron has always insisted that Britain must live up to its obligations under the protocol....
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