{"id":10737,"date":"2025-04-11T12:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T12:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/10737\/"},"modified":"2025-04-11T12:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T12:23:07","slug":"eu-chief-mocks-france-for-excluding-uk-from-130bn-defence-pact-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/10737\/","title":{"rendered":"EU chief mocks France for excluding UK from \u00a3130bn defence pact | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

An EU foreign affairs chief<\/a> has mocked France for using a row over fishing rights to block the UK involvement in a continental security deal. Kaja Kallas, the former prime minister of Estonia<\/a>, told of her shock at the impasse over Britain joining a \u00a3125 billion \u00a0(150bn euro) joint defence fund.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

She said she was \u201csurprised how important fish are, considering the security situation\u201d. Ms Kallas added: \u201c’I’m definitely pushing this from my side because I think the UK is a very important defence and security partner, it’s the most logical defence and security partner that we have and it is a beneficial relationship for both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

While laughing, she continued: \u201cI’m learning in this job \u2026 fish to the French<\/a> they are very important.\u201d<\/p>\n

The UK has attempted to be included in the initiative in light of its leadership over the \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d aimed at bolstering the continent\u2019s defence capabilities.<\/p>\n

Although talks on the UK joining the initiative is underway, it has hit a roadblock because of wider demands on a EU-UK pact over fishing rights and migration.<\/p>\n

Many EU member states want guarantees they will continue to have the same level of access to UK fishing waters as under a current deal that expires in June next year.<\/p>\n

There is also a push for Sir Keir to cave in on a youth mobility scheme to give young Europeans greater freedom to come to the UK to study and work – and vice versa for young Britons.<\/p>\n

It comes as the UK\u2019s Defence Secretary John Healey urged Ukraine<\/a>\u2019s allies to \u201clook hard\u201d at what more they can do to help Kyiv as the UK announced a \u00a3450 million \u201csurge\u201d in military support on Friday.<\/p>\n

He opened a meeting of the Ukraine<\/a> Defence Contact Group (UDCG) in Brussels with a plea to his fellow defence ministers to \u201cstep up our support for Ukraine<\/a> in the fight\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cOur job as defence ministers is to get urgent military aid into the hands of Ukrainian warfighters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd to those nations not making fresh commitments today, I urge you to look again, to look hard at what more you can do.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll military aid now will help Ukraine<\/a> in the fight today and help secure a durable peace tomorrow, because the Ukrainian armed forces must be their own strongest deterrent against further Russian attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An EU foreign affairs chief has mocked France for using a row over fishing rights to block the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,7384,5322,748,2000,7383,299,5187,1699,7382,4884,16,7385,657,7386,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-10737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-brexit-fishing-row","10":"tag-brexit-news","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-eu-defence-pact","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-european","16":"tag-european-union","17":"tag-global-security","18":"tag-great-britain","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-uk-security-partnership","21":"tag-ukraine","22":"tag-ukraine-military-support","23":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114319314334132052","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}