{"id":579046,"date":"2025-11-18T21:21:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T21:21:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/579046\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T21:21:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T21:21:18","slug":"eu-confirms-it-wants-uk-to-pay-into-its-budget-in-exchange-for-closer-ties-european-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/579046\/","title":{"rendered":"EU confirms it wants UK to pay into its budget in exchange for closer ties | European Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK must pay into the EU budget for future participation in the European single market in electricity, it has been confirmed, in what could become a major test for the post-Brexit reset<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s Europe minister, Thomas Byrne, said EU member states had decided the UK should make a financial contribution for closer ties: \u201cIreland wants to see Britain getting the benefit of closer engagement with the European Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately there is a cost to a lot of that and there are discussions to be had in terms of the cost to Britain, and certainly some other member states would see that as a priority issue. I think that is just being politically realistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an unexpected move, the EU decided last week that the UK should pay towards its budget in order to join the European electricity market.<\/p>\n

It would mean the UK paying into the EU budget, although Britain already pays EU membership legacy costs<\/a>. The two sides are also deadlocked over the EU\u2019s demand for an entry fee of up to \u20ac6bn (\u00a35.3bn) to allow British companies to maximise benefits from a \u20ac150bn (\u00a3132.1bn) EU defence programme.<\/p>\n

In more welcome news for the government, Byrne said he hoped both sides could strike a deal to ease food and animal checks at the border in the second half of 2026, during Ireland\u2019s presidency of the EU Council. Last week, the EU agreed a mandate for the European Commission<\/a> to negotiate this veterinary agreement. \u201cI think that could be a gamechanger,\u201d Byrne added.<\/p>\n

During a landmark summit in May that launched the government\u2019s EU reset<\/a>, Keir Starmer and the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, agreed the two sides \u201cshould explore in detail the necessary parameters for the United Kingdom\u2019s possible participation in the European Union\u2019s internal electricity market\u201d.<\/p>\n

Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen at the UK-EU summit in May. Photograph: Neil Hall\/EPA<\/p>\n

The text<\/a> did not spell out that the UK should pay for access \u2013 but since then, a large majority of EU member states have decided this should be the case. Several countries, including Belgium and Germany, have warned against allowing the UK to \u201ccherrypick\u201d the best bits of the European single market without abiding by common rules.<\/p>\n

Commission officials briefing EU ministers on Monday described the UK as a \u201ccomplicated and challenging counterpart\u201d and said \u201cnerves of steel and unity\u201d would be required through upcoming negotiations. The central challenge would be financial considerations, they added.<\/p>\n

Tensions over money have already emerged in negotiations over UK participation in the EU\u2019s \u20ac150bn security action for Europe (Safe) fund<\/a>. EU officials have suggested an entry fee of up to \u20ac6bn, far higher than the administrative fee the government had envisaged paying.<\/p>\n

Peter Ricketts, the veteran former diplomat who chairs the European affairs committee in the House of Lords, has described a rumoured \u20ac6.5bn fee as \u201cso off the scale that it suggests some EU members don\u2019t want the UK in the scheme\u201d.<\/p>\n

Some media outlets have reported the entry fee could be between \u20ac6.5bn and \u20ac6.7bn, but the Guardian understands the commission has proposed a fee ranging from \u20ac1bn to \u20ac6bn, proportionate to expected UK benefits.<\/p>\n

Sandro Gozi, an Italian centrist MEP who co-chairs the EU-UK parliamentary assembly, said it was imperative to show voters that the reset meant something.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up to Headlines Europe<\/p>\n

A digest of the morning’s main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to exploit this time window of opportunity to show to citizens [and] business that working together again through this partnership makes a difference, and to persuade, especially UK public opinion, but also the public opinion in our union, that it is worth to put energy, effort time in our renewed bilateral relationship,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A UK government spokesperson said Britain was <\/strong> \u201ccommitted to a broad and constructive relationship with the EU\u201d and work was ongoing to implement the package agreed at the UK-EU summit. \u201cWe will only agree deals that provide value to the UK and UK industry. Nothing has been agreed, and we will not give a running commentary on talks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barry Andrews, an Irish delegate on the EU-UK assembly who is a member of Byrne\u2019s Fianna F\u00e1il party, said progress had been \u201cterribly slow\u201d since the May summit and political energy was absent.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the current geopolitical situation, we should be absolutely racing towards agreement with the UK, and particularly on defence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK must pay into the EU budget for future participation in the European single market in electricity,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579047,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-579046","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115572800624360625","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579046","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=579046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}