EGN NEWS DESK
For now, Brussels is taking part in it cool. The message from von der Leyen was a well-recognized one: implement the offers we have already got, then we will actually discuss.
“We have a set of stable agreements in place,” she instructed reporters whereas standing subsequent to Starmer. “We ought to discover the scope for extra cooperation whereas we concentrate on the complete and devoted implementation of the withdrawal settlement, the Windsor framework, and the [Trade and Cooperation Agreement].”
“Member states need to capitalize on the optimistic momentum which appears to be there with Labour authorities in workplace,” one EU diplomat instructed POLITICO. “But it’s not sufficient to easily say one desires a reset, it requires precise work … there can solely be a reset if the U.Ok. strikes.”
‘Tone issues’
When pressed on whether or not his purple traces matched his rhetoric of a reset, Starmer instructed reporters after the assembly: “Tone does matter. Resetting does matter. And that has been an important a part of the message that I’ve carried into the assembly in the present day: a return to pragmatism, to doing enterprise in a respectful manner and in a manner which I feel will concentrate on deliverables reasonably than charging to the closest digicam to make use of a megaphone.”
On the difficulty of youth mobility, he mentioned: “I’ve made it clear what our place is and particularly that free motion is a purple line. But in the present day wasn’t about these particular person points, it was about the best way through which we’ll conduct these negotiations and the emphasis was on what we will do, not what we will’t do, and on deliverables reasonably than operating commentary.”
Diplomats from EU member international locations mentioned additionally they produce other priorities, like securing long-term fishing entry in U.Ok. waters and simpler cross-channel vitality buying and selling.
Asked about fishing, Starmer mentioned “that actually was not the character of the dialogue in the present day.”
In a joint assertion issued after their assembly von der Leyen and Starmer “agreed to take ahead this agenda of strengthened cooperation at tempo over the approaching months, beginning with defining collectively the areas through which strengthened cooperation could be mutually useful, such because the financial system, vitality, safety and resilience, in full respect of their inside procedures and institutional prerogatives.”
