Blitz Bureau
LEADERS of Germany and the United Kingdom announced plans to draw up a treaty meant to deepen trade between the two nations and defence and other ties. The move comes as the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer moves ahead with his plans for a “reset” of relations with the European Union, said a report in the Washington Post.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that he welcomes fellow Centre-Left leader Starmer’s desire for a new beginning in relations with the EU, and “we want to take this outstretched hand.” Starmer took office in early July after the previous Conservative Government was trounced in the elections. Four years after the UK left the EU, he says he wants to rebuild ties strained by years of ill-tempered wrangling over Brexit terms.
The British PM said that he hopes to conclude the bilateral agreement with Germany, which has Europe’s biggest economy, by the end of this year. “That will be ambitious, it will be wide-ranging, covering trade, the economy, defence and many other issues,” he told reporters.
Illegal migration
Starmer said the two countries also plan to draw up a “joint action plan to tackle illegal migration.” His Government still faces pressure to stop migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, though it scrapped the Conservatives’ contentious plan to send them on a one-way trip to Rwanda.
Migration is an issue on which the Scholz’s Government has also been under pressure, more so since August 23 attack in Solingen in which a suspected extremist from Syria, who had avoided being deported, was accused of killing three persons.
The proposed UK-Germany treaty is modelled in part on agreements that Britain struck in recent years with France on defence, security and closer law enforcement cooperation against people-smuggling gangs. Starmer sent a signal by visiting Berlin early in his term, unlike his predecessor Rishi Sunak, who took 18 months.
No reversing Brexit
But his talk of starting anew with the EU has its limits. He has ruled out many of the major possible steps to closer ties and has been cool to the idea of a youth mobility agreement with the 27-nation bloc. “I’m absolutely clear that we do want a reset … with Europe, a reset with the EU,” Starmer said in Berlin.
However, “that does not mean reversing Brexit or reentering the single market or the customs union, but it does mean a closer relation on a number of fronts — including the economy, including defence, including exchanges,” he added.
