Britain will make another effort to join the EU’s fund for pooled defence spending, Sir Keir Starmer has signalled as he prepares the next stages in his “Brexit reset”.
Speaking on his trip to China and Japan, the Prime Minister said it “makes good sense” for the UK and EU to collaborate on military spending against the backdrop of the Ukraine war and global instability partly caused by Donald Trump’s mercurial behaviour.
The Government held months of talks with Brussels about the possibility of signing up to Security Action for Europe (Safe), a fund to procure weaponry jointly for EU member states and others.
Asked whether the UK would apply to enter the second round of Safe funding in the coming months, Starmer said: “Europe, including the UK, needs to do more on security and defence. That’s an argument I’ve been making for many months now with European leaders.
“We’ve got to step up and do more. It’s not only President Trump who thinks Europe needs to do more but other presidents as well. I think the same.”
He added: “I do think on spend, capability and co-operation we need to do more together. I’ve made the argument and that should require us to look at schemes like Safe and others to see whether there is a way in which we can work more closely together.
Another olive branch for the EU to snap.
Whilst profit is more important to them than defense they won’t go for this.
The Commission is correct in holding the line and asking for a lot of money because we don’t need the UK in this fund. They’re quite well integrated in EU defence already through various agreements and it’s not like member states can’t buy UK equipment, SAFE is just a small % of our total military spending. So if they don’t want to pay as we ask they can easily stay out as there’s nothing to lose on our side. Also as we’ve seen in the last few years with stuff like the Windsor Framework and fishing/SPS deals the UK always bends over during negotiations because they are desperate to improving trade terms while we are not, you just need to sit and wait because they have no leverage: no point in giving them favorable conditions and losing money.
It’s also a very risky endeavor to do deals with the UK because anti-EU parties are dominating in the polls, the Tories and Reform already said that they would scrap or breach several of the current deals if they were elected. Whatever you sign now might be worthless in 2029 because someone like Farage might be PM and make life hell for you. Personally I wouldn’t deal with the UK at all beyond the current agreements because negotiating with them is probably a waste of time for that reason.
Just like de Gaulle was right about the Americans Macron is most probably right about the Brits and I’m totally with him on this, in 2029 they might get someone like Farage as PM who’s the biggest Trump dicksucker and Europe and we might have a Trojan horse situation in the continent. We should avoid dealing with a country like this because they’re inherently too pro-US and Eurosceptic, the TCA and other agreements we have with them are more than enough
Add some farage clauses lol
As a Brit, my thinking is increasingly becoming “Why bother?”
Russia is Europe’s main threat and we’re as far away as it’s possible to be. It’s not our problem.
Just fucking rejoin. It was much better when we were in the EU.
The United Kingdom is like a cat. It scratches at the door, you open it, it comes in, it scratches straight back at the door to get out. You open it, it goes out, it scratches straight back at the door, you open it, it doesn’t come in and just stares at you.
Re-posting this as I think it’s still pretty relevant.
A sane explanation of the UK – EU SAFE negotiations, to counteract the masses of British and French people blaming each other for nonsense.
> procurement contracts must ensure that no more than 35% of component costs originate from outside the EU, EEA-EFTA, or Ukraine.
There is not and was never any prospect that the UK would receive loan money from the EU. What the negotiations are about is increasing that 35% limit. Currently, for example, an EU recipient of SAFE money couldn’t use it to buy Meteor missiles, as ~40% of them is made in the UK. The goal was to increase the limit so that more of the products of the UK industry were eligible for purchase with SAFE money.
The negotiations failed previously fundamentally just because the EU and UK couldn’t agree a price for that limit increase. That’s it. The EU of course wants a high price because sales going to UK industry will likely reduce sales to EU industries. The UK wants a low price because it needs to be sure that it actually gets a return on its investment. HMG takes 25% of _profit_ through corporation tax, so would need to assess that the UK MIC could make at least 4x the entry fee _in profit_ solely on sales of equipment in which more than 35% was made outside the EU. The fact that no agreement could be made implies that the EU has more confidence in the UKs ability to make sales to major SAFE recipients than HMG does.
Does it actually matter? Probably not. There’s an extra condition on sales of any of the following to be eligible for SAFE funding:
* Air and missile defence systems
* Maritime surface and underwater capabilities
* Drones other than small drones (NATO class 2 and 3) and related anti-drone systems
* Strategic enablers such as, but not limited to, strategic airlift, air-to-air refueling, C4ISTAR systems as well as space assets and services
* Space assets protection
* Artificial intelligence and electronic warfare
And that restriction is that design authority has to be transferred to the customer – a probably unacceptable condition for basically everyone. That means that only really Category 1 stuff is likely to be funded by the program at all:
* Ammunition and missiles
* Artillery systems, including deep precision strike capabilities
* Ground combat capabilities and their support systems, including soldier equipment and infantry weapons
* Small drones (NATO class 1) and related anti-drone systems
* Critical infrastructure protection
* Cyber
* Military mobility including counter-mobility
And the UK simply is not a huge exporter of most of those things. For those things that we **are** an exporter of – like Meteor, which wouldn’t be eligible under the 35% rule – people are still going to buy it regardless of an agreement because ultimately money is fungible. They can just use SAFE funds for eligible purchases and ordinary funding for our kit.
Unfortunately this is being presented by some British people as evidence of antagonism towards the UK by the EU, and by some Europeans as evidence of Britain trying to have its cake and eat it. It is neither. This literally is just a disagreement over price that’s going to have likely close to no impact on procurement or relations. Everyone just **relax**, please.
I really hope they can join, I want the UK structurally engaged with as much as possible regarding European defense.
9 comments
Britain will make another effort to join the EU’s fund for pooled defence spending, Sir Keir Starmer has signalled as he prepares the next stages in his “Brexit reset”.
Speaking on his trip to China and Japan, the Prime Minister said it “makes good sense” for the UK and EU to collaborate on military spending against the backdrop of the Ukraine war and global instability partly caused by Donald Trump’s mercurial behaviour.
The Government held months of talks with Brussels about the possibility of signing up to Security Action for Europe (Safe), a fund to procure weaponry jointly for EU member states and others.
But the [negotiations collapsed in November](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/uk-eu-weapons-fund-talks-brexit-reset-economy-4073568?srsltid=AfmBOorqrU9MCnqCyDQ6ePpROL4FpqdJbE9FFpbI-pzr9uvvDebWxvbZ&ico=in-line_link) after EU countries – in particular France – insisted that Britain would need to pay billions of pounds to take part.
Asked whether the UK would apply to enter the second round of Safe funding in the coming months, Starmer said: “Europe, including the UK, needs to do more on security and defence. That’s an argument I’ve been making for many months now with European leaders.
“We’ve got to step up and do more. It’s not only President Trump who thinks Europe needs to do more but other presidents as well. I think the same.”
He added: “I do think on spend, capability and co-operation we need to do more together. I’ve made the argument and that should require us to look at schemes like Safe and others to see whether there is a way in which we can work more closely together.
Another olive branch for the EU to snap.
Whilst profit is more important to them than defense they won’t go for this.
The Commission is correct in holding the line and asking for a lot of money because we don’t need the UK in this fund. They’re quite well integrated in EU defence already through various agreements and it’s not like member states can’t buy UK equipment, SAFE is just a small % of our total military spending. So if they don’t want to pay as we ask they can easily stay out as there’s nothing to lose on our side. Also as we’ve seen in the last few years with stuff like the Windsor Framework and fishing/SPS deals the UK always bends over during negotiations because they are desperate to improving trade terms while we are not, you just need to sit and wait because they have no leverage: no point in giving them favorable conditions and losing money.
It’s also a very risky endeavor to do deals with the UK because anti-EU parties are dominating in the polls, the Tories and Reform already said that they would scrap or breach several of the current deals if they were elected. Whatever you sign now might be worthless in 2029 because someone like Farage might be PM and make life hell for you. Personally I wouldn’t deal with the UK at all beyond the current agreements because negotiating with them is probably a waste of time for that reason.
Just like de Gaulle was right about the Americans Macron is most probably right about the Brits and I’m totally with him on this, in 2029 they might get someone like Farage as PM who’s the biggest Trump dicksucker and Europe and we might have a Trojan horse situation in the continent. We should avoid dealing with a country like this because they’re inherently too pro-US and Eurosceptic, the TCA and other agreements we have with them are more than enough
Add some farage clauses lol
As a Brit, my thinking is increasingly becoming “Why bother?”
Russia is Europe’s main threat and we’re as far away as it’s possible to be. It’s not our problem.
Just fucking rejoin. It was much better when we were in the EU.
The United Kingdom is like a cat. It scratches at the door, you open it, it comes in, it scratches straight back at the door to get out. You open it, it goes out, it scratches straight back at the door, you open it, it doesn’t come in and just stares at you.
Re-posting this as I think it’s still pretty relevant.
A sane explanation of the UK – EU SAFE negotiations, to counteract the masses of British and French people blaming each other for nonsense.
SAFE is the provision of cheap loans to EU countries, which can be used by the EU nations receiving money (which is not all of them, the list for round one [is here](https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-defence-industry/safe-security-action-europe_en)) to buy military equipment. One condition of the program is that…
> procurement contracts must ensure that no more than 35% of component costs originate from outside the EU, EEA-EFTA, or Ukraine.
There is not and was never any prospect that the UK would receive loan money from the EU. What the negotiations are about is increasing that 35% limit. Currently, for example, an EU recipient of SAFE money couldn’t use it to buy Meteor missiles, as ~40% of them is made in the UK. The goal was to increase the limit so that more of the products of the UK industry were eligible for purchase with SAFE money.
The negotiations failed previously fundamentally just because the EU and UK couldn’t agree a price for that limit increase. That’s it. The EU of course wants a high price because sales going to UK industry will likely reduce sales to EU industries. The UK wants a low price because it needs to be sure that it actually gets a return on its investment. HMG takes 25% of _profit_ through corporation tax, so would need to assess that the UK MIC could make at least 4x the entry fee _in profit_ solely on sales of equipment in which more than 35% was made outside the EU. The fact that no agreement could be made implies that the EU has more confidence in the UKs ability to make sales to major SAFE recipients than HMG does.
Does it actually matter? Probably not. There’s an extra condition on sales of any of the following to be eligible for SAFE funding:
* Air and missile defence systems
* Maritime surface and underwater capabilities
* Drones other than small drones (NATO class 2 and 3) and related anti-drone systems
* Strategic enablers such as, but not limited to, strategic airlift, air-to-air refueling, C4ISTAR systems as well as space assets and services
* Space assets protection
* Artificial intelligence and electronic warfare
And that restriction is that design authority has to be transferred to the customer – a probably unacceptable condition for basically everyone. That means that only really Category 1 stuff is likely to be funded by the program at all:
* Ammunition and missiles
* Artillery systems, including deep precision strike capabilities
* Ground combat capabilities and their support systems, including soldier equipment and infantry weapons
* Small drones (NATO class 1) and related anti-drone systems
* Critical infrastructure protection
* Cyber
* Military mobility including counter-mobility
And the UK simply is not a huge exporter of most of those things. For those things that we **are** an exporter of – like Meteor, which wouldn’t be eligible under the 35% rule – people are still going to buy it regardless of an agreement because ultimately money is fungible. They can just use SAFE funds for eligible purchases and ordinary funding for our kit.
Unfortunately this is being presented by some British people as evidence of antagonism towards the UK by the EU, and by some Europeans as evidence of Britain trying to have its cake and eat it. It is neither. This literally is just a disagreement over price that’s going to have likely close to no impact on procurement or relations. Everyone just **relax**, please.
I really hope they can join, I want the UK structurally engaged with as much as possible regarding European defense.