10 September 2023

FT's Sandbu: The EU’s transformations will reshape its ‘British question’ too

Last week’s agreement for the UK to join the EU’s Horizon research programme ties up the last loose end of the arrangements governing Britain’s exit from the bloc — at least in a narrow sense. In a broader sense, “unfinished business” is the very definition of how the relationship will continue to develop.

Just for starters, terms for fishing rights, electric vehicle trade, and financial sector access have to be updated in the next few years. And that’s only what’s programmed into existing agreements. With Horizon settled, attention in the British political debate keeps circling around the broader future of the EU-UK relationship.

The looming question is how (and when) the striking pro-European turn in British public opinion will trigger new political choices. Contrast that with the silence in the EU and its member countries on what the next steps with the UK might be. The silence is not strategic; it is simply not a question anyone is giving any thought to — for several excellent reasons.

One is that there is no point thinking about it without a fundamental change in UK politics. Perhaps a Labour government led by Sir Keir Starmer will seek a closer form of association, despite his effort to make voters believe the opposite. But until then, there is nothing for the EU to decide beyond managing the relationship, such as it is.

Also, the EU has more important business to attend to. Russia’s assault on Ukraine and its energy war on Europe, relations with China, the green transition and other priorities push a difficult but mostly harmless neighbour off the list.

While the bloc’s own preoccupations warrant this relative neglect, they are still going to transform what we may call the EU’s British question, in radical if unintended ways. What the EU does for reasons unrelated to the UK nonetheless has implications for the bloc’s future relations with Britain. And these are worth taking note of — not least because they may include previously excluded opportunities.

The political necessity of bringing Ukraine closer to and ultimately into the EU has opened questions that were firmly shut while the UK was in the process of leaving. Remember Brexit tsar Michel Barnier’s “ladder” of available relationships? EU leaders are now seriously considering much more “progressive” — ie finely graduated — forms of association, though this thinking applies to countries headed into the EU rather than out of it....

 more at FT

© FT plc