Insight
The next steps for the UK-EU reset by Martin Donnelly, 19 June 2025 The UK-EU summit last month was an important step towards closer co-operation and a strategic partnership. Both sides now need to turn that ambition into detailed sectoral negotiations with a clear timescale. Inevitably, the summit’s conclusions were more of a roadmap than a set of agreed legal outcomes. But it marks the changed relationship between London and Brussels, moving on from the contested aftermath of the 2016 referendum, with potential to deliver increased growth as well as shared security for both parties. The UK signalled its return to genuine collaboration with its European partners and neighbours through a Security and Defence Partnership, a political accord to make progress on key sectors including energy, and an agreement which defused fish as an issue. The EU moved towards a more positive view of bilateral co-operation – with less official suspicion about UK ‘cherry picking’. Agreement was made easier by the profound disruption to the multilateral world that has stemmed from the Trump administration’s rhetoric and policies. Uncertainty has become the new normal. Both the UK and the EU face a transactional global environment, where investment, trade and regulatory issues can no longer be negotiated separately from wider political and security relationships. Bilateral discussions with the US remain important and necessary. But there should be no illusions about how much stability they can deliver, given the disproportionate economic power of the US compared with the UK, and the willingness of the Trump administration to ignore or revoke a range of existing treaties in pursuit of its political objectives. With US trade policy changing from week to week, businesses are having to ‘steer through the fog’, as the IMF has put it. In practice many of them are suspending investment plans or looking beyond the US for more stable policy environments. So while the UK is right to engage on trade issues with Washington, this must continue in terms consistent with UK values, in support of sustainable growth and fair, rules-based multilateral trade. Agreements with the US have to respect UK sovereignty in wider policy areas, including foreign policy, CER INSIGHT: THE NEXT STEPS FOR THE UK-EU RESET 19 June 2025
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