{"id":52574,"date":"2025-04-26T16:43:21","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T16:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/52574\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T16:43:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T16:43:21","slug":"eu-demands-uk-must-pay-to-join-new-defence-pact-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/52574\/","title":{"rendered":"EU demands UK must pay to join new defence pact | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brexiteers hit out at Labour after reports that Britain will have to pay to join a European Union<\/a> defence fund. The UK and the EU are set to sign a wider security deal at a summit in London next month as part of Sir Keir Starmer<\/a>‘s Brexit<\/a> “reset”.<\/p>\n

But a second agreement will reportedly be required before British companies are able to bid for the new \u20ac150 billion EU defence fund. Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice<\/a> said: “This just confirms what we have known all along \u2013 Labour can’t be trusted to strike a deal with the EU that puts Britain first.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve got a government stuffed with Remainers, led by a Prime Minister who tried to overturn Brexit<\/a> and ignore 17 million voices.<\/p>\n

\u201cBritain is a global arms powerhouse \u2013 yet at a time when European peace hangs by a thread, the EU is more interested in chasing our cash than standing with us. That tells you everything.”<\/p>\n

Tory Shadow Armed Forces Minister Mark Francois added: \u201cIf there is a defence announcement at the UK\/EU Summit on 19 May, we will judge it on its merits when we see the details.<\/p>\n

“However, the risk is, Labour will use it as \u2018camoflague\u2019 to try and mask a surrender on both fish and food. Starmer Remains a Remainer – and he always will.\u201d<\/p>\n

EU diplomats and officials told the Financial Times that the UK would be expected to pay a fee to access the fund.<\/p>\n

One said: \u201cThe pact is a nonbinding instrument. The more difficult hurdle is going to be a bilateral agreement that would include a financial contribution.”<\/p>\n

A second added: \u201cTo get your industry in the game, you need a second agreement. The commission will negotiate that, and will first look at what each country has to offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, the French will try to complicate it for the Brits. I imagine that there will be some form of [financial] contribution involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

A third EU diplomat said: \u201cThe actual effective association to the programme requires a specific arrangement. We need to discuss the rules, what contribution and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

A senior European Commission official confirmed that the UK would be required to pay, but it was unclear if this would be a small administration fee or something larger.<\/p>\n

It comes after the Prime Minister welcomed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Number 10 on Thursday ahead of the UK-EU summit on May 19.<\/p>\n

A Downing Street spokesperson described Thursday’s meeting as “long and productive”, covering areas including Ukraine<\/a>, energy security, the global economy and defence.<\/p>\n

Brexiteers have also been left furious over reports that Sir Keir has made concessions on fishing rights in order to strike the defence deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brexiteers hit out at Labour after reports that Britain will have to pay to join a European Union…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[802,2000,299,5187,807,1220],"class_list":{"0":"post-52574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-keir-starmer","13":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114405271837183777","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52574","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=52574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}