Sir Keir Starmer’s cherished agreement on defence with the European Union seems to have been high on the diplomatic agenda for a very long time without ever quite reaching its top. The Labour party’s manifesto for last year’s general election promised an ‘ambitious new UK-EU security pact to strengthen cooperation on the threats we face’. We have heard the word ‘reset’ in terms of our relationship with the EU so often that it has lost most of whatever meaning it once had.
Next week, however, the UK will host a summit for the Prime Minister to engage with EU leaders and, at last, approve this long-anticipated and discussed defence deal. The Times has gleaned some of the major elements of the agreement: it will be ‘unique and ambitious’ – it would be odd if negotiators on either side had dismissed it as ‘ten-a-penny’ or ‘low-hanging fruit’; it will make it easier to move military assets and personnel across the continent; and it will make some provision for the UK to participate in the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defence industry fund and EU military missions.
The one explicit argument in the pact’s favour will not even be automatic
The agreement is reportedly heavy on sententious rhetoric, with the UK and the EU facing a ‘decisive moment’ and the ‘greatest threat in a generation’. Yet it is still not entirely possible to discern what Starmer wants from the deal in principle, as I warned in February this year. The Prime Minister still hasn’t offered a plausible justification for pursuing defence policy and procurement through the EU’s limited and weak institutions rather than the tried-and-tested structures of Nato. My concern is that he sees it as a way of atoning for Brexit, of expiating the sins of the British electorate, instead of acting in the hard-faced national interest.
One major motivating factor for an agreement of some kind is that the EU’s new €150 million (£126 million) SAFE loan scheme for defence spending makes clear that those participating in common procurement must be either EU or EFTA members, an acceding, candidate or potential candidate country, Ukraine or ‘third countries with whom the Union has entered a Security and Defence Partnership’.
Given that the UK is home to the world’s seventh-largest defence manufacturer, BAE Systems, the inclusion of this proviso was a not-very-coded message to Britain: if you want to be a player in this booming sector, you will need to sign a security agreement. However, it seems that any rights of access the United Kingdom might expect will not be automatic under the new agreement, but ‘subject to a separate negotiation and conditions, including a financial contribution from the UK’.
It has also been reported that the EU is ‘open to the UK taking part in the EU’s common security and defence policy’. This slightly offhand acceptance is at odds with the tone of the debate only a few months ago, when support for EU military missions was seen as a duty the UK might have to pay for a wider deal. Now it is being graciously, if partially, bestowed as a reward.
The danger is that the UK is sucked into supporting military deployments that it did not approve, for foreign policy priorities which we may not share. The whole idea could merely strike another blow at a weakened Nato.
The European Union’s joint command and control institutions are much smaller and less tested than those of the alliance. The EU’s timid approach to clear and identified threats was demonstrated by the refusal of various member states to participate in Operation Prosperity Guardian, the US-led security mission against Houthi militants in the Red Sea. The Prime Minister should shape the UK’s defence policy around our strategic interests and the means of delivering them, not as a token of good faith to an organisation we left five years ago.
What is the UK gaining from the impending agreement if the reports of its contents are accurate? Our defence industry will be ‘allowed’ to meet EU procurement needs under SAFE but only if a participation fee is paid, and the EU is ‘open to’ allowing the UK armed forces to bolster its own military capability. In addition, there will be various working groups and discussion forums which merely enshrine the kind of conversations which could be happening anyway.
This agreement is intended to be the centrepiece of the summit. It will have come at a cost, many anticipate, of continued EU access to UK fisheries and acceptance of a youth mobility scheme. There may also be increased ability for British suppliers to sell food and agricultural products in the EU without customs checks. The pact will pull the UK into the EU’s Common Defence and Security Policy, but we will have no influence over decision-making. And we will duplicate many of the functions and institutions of Nato, or rather provide worse ways of replicating them. The one explicit argument in the pact’s favour – allowing our defence sector access to SAFE – will not even be automatic.
No doubt the Prime Minister will tell us this is a good deal for Britain. It feels more like a desperate plea for better relations with an ex-partner – and ten months of diplomatic energy which would have been much better spent elsewhere. Still, 27 EU member states will regard it as quite a coup.
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