Roberta Metsola<\/a>, recently traveled to London for a high-profile visit widely interpreted as a signal that Brussels remains open to deepening cooperation.<\/p>\nThe so-called \u201creset,\u201d launched by the UK\u2019s Labour government after taking office in July 2024, is broadly viewed as an attempt to stabilize and expand ties between the two sides. One of its principal goals is to reduce post-Brexit trade barriers while stopping short of returning Britain to the EU\u2019s single market, customs union, or freedom of movement.<\/p>\n
Instead, policymakers have focused on more targeted initiatives, including a veterinary agreement to smooth agricultural trade, closer security cooperation, and new arrangements for youth mobility.<\/p>\n
In recent months, there have been some tangible steps toward restoring ties. Britain has rejoined the Erasmus student-exchange scheme and the Horizon research program\u2014two flagship EU initiatives that symbolize the practical benefits of cooperation.<\/p>\n
For some European lawmakers, however, these measures do not go far enough.<\/p>\n
French MEP Sandro Gozi, co-chair of the EU\u2013UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, has urged both sides to intensify their efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrexit meant Brexit,\u201d said the Renew Europe lawmaker, \u201cbut ten years is a long time in politics, and the geopolitical landscape has changed beyond recognition. It is time for the UK government to recognize that the EU is Britain\u2019s closest ally and its strongest partner for sustainable economic growth in this new world order.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Gozi\u2019s view, progress toward repairing relations has been too slow.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe EU\u2013UK reset must now be supercharged,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His assessment is echoed, at least in part, by Irish MEP Barry Cowen, a member of the European Parliament\u2019s delegation for relations with the United Kingdom and shadow rapporteur on Parliament\u2019s report examining implementation of the EU\u2013UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement.<\/p>\n
Cowen, also a member of Renew Europe, argues that the reset must match the scale of the geopolitical challenges facing Europe as a whole.<\/p>\n
\u201cIreland, Europe, and the UK all stand to benefit from greater ambition and from reducing trade barriers that remain unnecessarily high,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTen years after the Brexit decision, the British people increasingly want a closer relationship with Europe. It is time to supercharge the reset.\u201d<\/p>\n
To gauge how relations might evolve in the coming years, I spoke with several senior former British members of the European Parliament.<\/p>\n
Edward McMillan-Scott, a former vice-president of the European Parliament, points to recent polling by YouGov showing that 54 percent of Britons surveyed now favor a closer relationship with the EU, compared with 34 percent who oppose it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd remember,\u201d McMillan-Scott said, \u201cthis is against a background in which 58 percent say Britain was wrong to leave the EU, while only 30 percent disagree.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pat Cox, a former MEP and president of the European Parliament, likewise believes the geopolitical environment has shifted dramatically since Brexit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been a dramatic change in geopolitical realities,\u201d he said, invoking the economist John Maynard Keynes: \u201cWhen the facts change, I change my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe time has come,\u201d Cox added, \u201cto confront the new realities and act accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Further commentary came from Lord Richard Balfe, a member of the UK House of Lords. He argues that a British political party willing to endorse a second referendum reversing the 2016 vote could attract significant support.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf one of our political parties in the UK is prepared at the next election to endorse another referendum to reverse the 2016 vote,\u201d he said, \u201cthey would receive a huge amount of support from the sort of Middle England that lives around Cambridge, where I live, and across the rest of the Home Counties.\u201d<\/p>\n
If either Labour or the Conservatives were to take such a step, Balfe suggested, the move could reshape Britain\u2019s political landscape.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey could once again make the Liberal Democrats the party of aspirant Middle England and the main opposition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Former UK Europe Minister Denis MacShane also believes the current moment demands bolder leadership.<\/p>\n
Britain, he notes, now faces the highest level of youth unemployment in Europe, while economic growth lags behind countries such as Spain and Poland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat surely shows the time has come for stronger leadership from both sides,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
MacShane, who served as a government minister under Tony Blair, offered a particularly colorful metaphor to describe the current state of EU\u2013UK relations.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, London and Brussels look like two elephants side by side in the same bed but with no idea how to have sex.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his view, public opinion in Britain is steadily shifting.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery opinion poll in the UK shows that a growing majority now sees the Boris Johnson\u2013Nigel Farage Brexit adventure\u2014funded and supported by Vladimir Putin\u2014as a disastrous wrong turning for the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, MacShane added, is widely known for his cautious approach to politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is famous for being an ultra-cautious, one-step-at-a-time lawyer,\u201d MacShane said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in politics, lawyerly caution sometimes needs to be replaced by leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n
The debate over the future of EU\u2013UK relations is also the focus of a new joint policy paper produced by the Centre for European Reform and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung UK and Ireland.<\/p>\n
The paper poses a pointed question: Will 2026 be the year to \u201creset the reset\u201d?<\/p>\n
Its authors argue that the EU and the UK must undertake a fundamental rethink of how they cooperate in an increasingly unstable global environment.<\/p>\n
Ian Bond, deputy director of the Brussels-based Centre for European Reform and author of the paper, says the geopolitical context surrounding Brexit has changed dramatically.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the UK voted for Brexit, Europeans have had to deal with Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine, Donald Trump\u2019s aggressive trade policy and threats to annex Greenland, and China\u2019s willingness to use its near-monopoly on critical minerals to pressure other countries,\u201d Bond said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn turbulent times, both the EU and the UK would benefit from overcoming the lack of trust that the Brexit process created.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Bond, cooperation between London and Brussels should focus particularly on shared economic and security interests, including strengthening European strategic autonomy.<\/p>\n
The policy brief\u2014produced as part of a three-paper project titled \u201cNavigating Stormy Waters: UK\u2013EU Cooperation in a Shifting Global Landscape\u201d\u2014draws on a detailed assessment of progress following the first\u2013ever EU\u2013UK summit, held in May 2025.<\/p>\n
That meeting appeared, at the time, to signal a new chapter in relations.<\/p>\n
At the summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the EU and the UK as \u201chistorical and natural partners standing side by side on the global stage, facing the same challenges, pursuing the same objectives, like-minded and sharing the same values.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet eight months later, the report concludes, momentum has faded.<\/p>\n
Part of the slowdown, the authors argue, stems from the British government\u2019s reluctance during much of 2025 to confront eurosceptic voices in the media and political opposition.<\/p>\n
\u201cLabour in 2025 remained disappointingly willing to tolerate the well-documented economic damage caused by being outside the EU,\u201d the paper states.<\/p>\n
But the EU, the report notes, also bears responsibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is still a sense among EU officials and member states that the UK should be made to pay a price for Brexit.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sentiment surfaced during negotiations over Britain\u2019s participation in the EU\u2019s Security Action for Europe program, which aims to promote joint procurement of weapons and munitions for European defense.<\/p>\n
Talks stalled after the EU demanded a large upfront financial contribution from the UK.<\/p>\n
The May 2025 summit produced a \u201cCommon Understanding\u201d outlining twenty areas of cooperation and numerous additional topics. Yet even initiatives that appeared straightforward\u2014such as collaboration on international development assistance or health security\u2014have proved difficult to implement.<\/p>\n
There have been a few notable successes. Britain is set to rejoin the Erasmus+ program for educational and training exchanges, at least temporarily.<\/p>\n
But overall, the policy paper suggests, progress has been slower than many hoped.<\/p>\n
The broader geopolitical environment may ultimately force closer cooperation.<\/p>\n
The authors argue that the UK\u2013U.S. special relationship has been significantly damaged and that the rules-based international order has, in many respects, begun to disintegrate.<\/p>\n
Against that backdrop, the EU and the UK must rethink how they can strengthen both security and prosperity through deeper collaboration.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump\u2019s behavior is likely to be one of the forces shaping the EU\u2013UK relationship in 2026,\u201d the paper warns.<\/p>\n
Neither side, it argues, has fully grasped the scale of the emerging threats.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe UK is clinging to a special relationship with the United States that has been gravely, perhaps irreparably, damaged,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Europe risks geopolitical marginalization if it fails to coordinate more closely.<\/p>\n
\u201cEurope as a whole needs to work together more closely if it does not want to be reduced to a group of vassals of one or another great power.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the authors, the implication is clear.<\/p>\n
If the first reset has stalled, then 2026 may need to become the year that Europe resets the reset.<\/p>\n
\n If you’re interested in writing for International Policy Digest – please send us an email via submissions@intpolicydigest.org<\/a>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The world of 2026 bears little resemblance to the world of 2016, when the United Kingdom voted to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,20327,4884,384,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-807596","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-eurozone","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-nigel-farage","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116181569778364363","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807596","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=807596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}