By Alistair Smout and Andrew Gray<\/p>\n
LONDON\/BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Britain said on Friday that talks to join the European Union’s defence fund SAFE have broken down, in a setback for a much-vaunted \u200bpost-Brexit reset of relations aimed at strengthening Europe’s defence.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Keir Starmer hailed a “new era” \u200cin Britain’s relationship with the EU in May, with a deal to reboot defence and trade ties that allowed London to negotiate joining the 150 billion \u200ceuro ($173 billion) fund to rearm Europe.<\/p>\n
But two days ahead of the deadline to conclude talks, Britain said it would not be possible to reach an agreement.<\/p>\n
“While it is disappointing that we have not been able to conclude discussions on UK participation in the first round of SAFE, the UK defence industry will still be able to participate in projects through SAFE on third-country terms,” \u2060said Nick Thomas-Symonds, Britain’s minister \u200cfor European Union Relations.<\/p>\n
“Negotiations were carried out in good faith, but our position was always clear: we will only sign agreements that are in the national interest and provide value for money.\u200d”<\/p>\n
‘FRUSTRATING’ SETBACK FOR EUROPEAN DEFENCE PROCUREMENT<\/p>\n
Shares in Britain’s biggest listed defence companies – BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and Babcock – were not affected by the news.<\/p>\n
Under the terms of the fund, procurement contracts must ensure that no more than 35% of component costs \u200boriginate outside the EU or from other participating countries such as Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Aerospace and defence industry group ADS expressed disappointment, saying \u200cthe capped level of participation “does not represent the scale of the potential presented by SAFE”.<\/p>\n
“This lost opportunity for the UK’s defence and security supply chain is a frustrating setback after the successful reset of UK-EU relations in May 2025, especially at a time when stability and investment in European defence is needed most,” said Kevin Craven, CEO of ADS.<\/p>\n
Negotiators had discussed whether British participation could instead be capped at 50% but Britain balked at EU demands that it contribute billions of euros \u2060for access.<\/p>\n
Starmer has sought to strike a contrast to the often rancorous \u200brelations between previous Conservative governments and the EU as they negotiated Britain’s departure \u200bfrom the bloc, which was completed in 2020. He has also taken a leading role in co-ordinating European support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
An EU Commission spokesperson declined to comment on the outcome of the talks, \u200dsaying they had been intense but \u2060had been carried out constructively and in good faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Alistair Smout and Andrew Gray LONDON\/BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Britain said on Friday that talks to join the European…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[748,188395,2000,299,5187,71763,1699,807,38798],"class_list":{"0":"post-602303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-defence-fund","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-defence","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-keir-starmer","16":"tag-safe"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115635797922086747","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602303","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=602303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}