{"id":987773,"date":"2026-05-27T09:47:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T09:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/987773\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T09:47:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T09:47:19","slug":"eu-ministers-resist-big-brexit-rethink-as-uk-speculation-of-rejoining-grows-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/987773\/","title":{"rendered":"EU ministers resist big Brexit rethink as UK speculation of \u2018rejoining\u2019 grows \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

EU officials were guarded on the prospect of closer relations with the UK amid growing speculation that London wants to reverse much of the Brexit process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Relations with the UK were high on the agenda at a meeting of the EU\u2019s general affairs council<\/a>\u00a0in Brussels on Tuesday (25 May)\u00a0and, ahead of\u00a0the\u00a0meeting, Ireland\u2019s foreign minister Helen McEntee\u00a0told reporters that concluding EU-UK negotiations on agrifood standards and emission trading schemes\u00a0were a top priority.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But other top officials were giving\u00a0little\u00a0away. Marilena Raouna, Cyprus\u2019 deputy minister for European affairs, told reporters <\/a>after the meeting on Tuesday that \u201ctangible progress\u201d had been made during her government\u2019s\u00a0six-month\u00a0EU council presidency, pointing to the conclusion of an agreement on Gibraltar and the start of talks on electricity trading.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She added that \u201cministers shared a clear willingness to continue strengthening relationship in a pragmatic spirit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

British prime minister Keir Starmer promised a \u2018reset\u2019 of UK-EU relations<\/a> after winning the 2024 elections and has since brought\u00a0the UK back into the Erasmus student exchange\u00a0programme\u00a0as well as parts of the EU\u2019s cohesion policy to support the\u00a0bloc\u2019s poorest regions. His ministers have also opened talks with EU officials on electricity trading and an agreement on phytosanitary standards that would ease trade in agricultural goods.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But with Starmer under heavy pressure<\/a> to resign following dismal results in local elections in May, and\u00a0Labour\u00a0slumping behind Nigel Farage\u2019s nationalist Reform party in opinion polls, Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting, the two most likely candidates to replace him as prime minister have both called for the UK to rejoin the EU, though without setting a\u00a0timeline for this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starmer\u2019s government,\u00a0for its part, has offered to join the single market,\u00a0according to press reports, but\u00a0has been rebuffed, for the moment, by the EU.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also\u00a0on\u00a0Tuesday, the\u00a0bloc\u2019s\u00a0commissioner for startups,\u00a0research\u00a0and innovation, Ekaterina Zaharieva,\u00a0told the\u00a0Financial Times<\/a>\u00a0that the UK could join the EU\u2019s\u00a0\u20ac4bn\u00a0investment fund for start-ups.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For his part, democracy and rule of law commissioner\u00a0Michael McGrath\u00a0stuck to generalities,\u00a0saying\u00a0that the EU Commission\u00a0\u201ccontinues\u00a0to work on translating the renewed bilateral agenda into concrete outcomes\u201d\u00a0based on \u201cthe full timely and faithful\u201d implementation of\u00a0the\u00a0existing Trade and Cooperation Agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though there is relief among most EU governments at the Starmer government\u2019s wish for closer ties, few want to reopen the Trade and Cooperation Agreement struck with Boris Johnson in December 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead, most want to take a piecemeal approach, focused on phytosanitary standards and UK participation, in return for a financial contribution, in the EU\u2019s SAFE\u00a0defence\u00a0procurement scheme.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UK\u00a0clearly understands that Brexit has been one of the\u00a0factors contributing to its economic difficulties,\u201d Bernd Lange, the chair of the European Parliament\u2019s international trade committee, told EUobserver.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pointing to the mutual desire for \u201ccloser alignment\u201d,\u00a0he added that \u201cmy sense is that,\u00a0in the long run, this could evolve into\u00a0something resembling a Swiss-style model.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EU officials were guarded on the prospect of closer relations with the UK amid growing speculation that London…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":987774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5226],"tags":[217083,802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,225602,271776,225600,271774,225601,271775,16,15],"class_list":["post-987773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brexit","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-great-britain","tag-identifier4437","tag-identifier4551","tag-namebrexit","tag-nameuk","tag-termcodebrexit","tag-termcodeuk","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116645911880154176","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987773","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=987773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/987774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=987773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=987773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=987773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}