Matthew Holehouse, our British political correspondent, considers Britain’s relationship with the European Union
Has Britain’s European “reset”, at last, begun? Sir Keir Starmer last night joined an informal meeting of the European Council (the gathering of the EU’s national heads of government) for dinner at the Palais d’Egmont in Brussels to talk about the continent’s security. That alone was a gesture of rapprochement: it was the first time a British prime minister had joined a gathering of their 27 counterparts since Boris Johnson’s attendance in October 2019, in the dying months of Britain’s membership. There, as Downing Street put it, Sir Keir “set out his pitch for an ambitious UK-EU defence and security partnership” which will make “Brexit work better for the British people”. He outlined some specifics of what that new partnership might include: a greater role for Britain in EU defence missions, work to protect critical infrastructure from sabotage and (by far the most complex) deeper defence-industrial co-operation.
英國的歐洲「重置」終於開始了嗎？
昨晚，基爾·斯塔默爵士（Sir Keir Starmer）參加了歐洲理事會（即歐盟各國政府首腦的聚會）在布魯塞爾埃格蒙宮（Palais d’Egmont）舉行的非正式晚宴，討論歐洲大陸的安全問題。光是這一舉動本身就是一種和解的姿態——這是自2019年10月鮑里斯·強森（Boris Johnson）在英國脫歐最後階段出席會議以來，英國首相首次與27位歐盟領袖會面。
在會上，根據唐寧街的說法，斯塔默爵士「提出了英國與歐盟建立雄心勃勃的國防與安全夥伴關係的構想」，以使「脫歐能更好地為英國人民服務」。他還概述了這一新夥伴關係可能包含的一些具體內容，包括：英國在歐盟防務任務中發揮更大作用、共同保護關鍵基礎設施免受破壞，以及（最為複雜的）深化國防產業合作。
It is not before time. A post-election optimism among European diplomats about the prospects for a rapprochement with Britain gave way to shrugs, as it became clear that the new government had scores more pressing priorities. Some officials were surprised at how little internal reflection the Labour Party had done in opposition as to what it really wanted, and how foggy its ideas were. While there is broad respect for Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister responsible for the reset who has a clear eye for detail, negotiations could never be a technocratic affair: they would really begin when only Sir Keir leant in and said what he wanted. “We need a political motor,” as one official put it to me recently. (The next key date, No 10 confirms this morning, will be a UK-EU leaders’ summit in Britain on May 19th.)
這一刻確實姍姍來遲。
選後，歐洲外交官曾對英國與歐盟關係改善的前景抱持樂觀態度，但隨著新政府面臨許多更為緊迫的優先事項，這種樂觀情緒逐漸變成了無奈的聳肩。一些官員對工黨在反對黨時期對自身立場缺乏深入反思感到驚訝，認為其政策構想模糊不清。
雖然負責「重置」事務的內閣辦公室部長尼克·托馬斯-西蒙茲（Nick Thomas-Symonds）因其細節把控能力受到廣泛尊重，但談判絕非純粹的技術性事務——真正的進展，只有在基爾·斯塔默爵士親自介入並明確表態時才會開始。正如一位官員最近對我所說：「我們需要一個政治動力。」唐寧街今晨證實，下一個關鍵日期將是5月19日，屆時英國將舉辦英國-歐盟領導人峰會。
As we wrote a couple of weeks ago the negotiation has strong tailwinds. The war in Ukraine, and the Trump presidency, create a new geopolitical logic for the UK-EU relationship (European officials talk of Britain as part of an “ecosystem of resilience”), which makes the rows that dominated the years after the Brexit referendum over money and judges look trivial. Speaking in Brussels this morning Mr Thomas-Symonds promised an approach of “ruthless pragmatism” (a hint, it seemed to me, that questions over alignment with EU law and the like won’t snarl things up). And Labour’s electorate affords it a lot of room for manoeuvre: 78% of the party’s voters in 2024 would support rejoining, according to YouGov. (You might read a lot about “Brexit betrayals” in the coming months; in truth, people who get angry about such stuff form a tiny part of Labour’s support.)
正如我們幾週前所寫的，這場談判正迎來強勁的順風。
烏克蘭戰爭和特朗普的總統任期為英國與歐盟關係創造了一種新的地緣政治邏輯（歐洲官員將英國視為「韌性生態系統」的一部分），這使得英國脫歐公投後數年圍繞資金和司法問題的爭議顯得微不足道。
今晨在布魯塞爾發表講話時，托馬斯-西蒙茲先生承諾將採取「冷酷的務實主義」態度（在我看來，這暗示著有關與歐盟法律對齊等問題不會成為阻礙）。此外，工黨的選民基礎也為其提供了很大的操作空間：根據 YouGov 的數據，2024 年工黨選民中有 78% 支持重新加入歐盟。
（未來幾個月，你可能會看到許多關於「背叛脫歐」的討論；但事實上，對此憤怒的人在工黨支持者中只是極少數。）
The outcome will probably fall far short of what such folk hope for. The main economic elements of the mooted agreement will be slightly more efficient cross-border electricity trading, and lighter border checks on food—worth having, but hardly transformative. The result is a large mismatch between the government’s rhetoric on economic growth as a driving logic of the negotiation and the amount of additional growth we might expect to see.
最終結果可能遠遠達不到這些人所期待的程度。
目前談判中提及的主要經濟內容，僅限於提高跨境電力交易的效率和放寬食品邊境檢查——這些措施雖然有價值，但稱不上是顛覆性的變革。
因此，政府將經濟增長作為談判核心邏輯的說辭，與最終可能實現的額外增長之間，存在著巨大的落差。
But some EU diplomats like to take a long view. Sir Keir’s reset, it is now obvious, will not be a structural jump that produces a big change to the Brexit settlement. Rather it will be part of a long glidepath of Britain slowly reconverging with the bloc. The “real reset”, as one official puts it, began with Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir’s predecessor, who negotiated a fix for trade with Northern Ireland and re-entry to the EU’s scientific-research programme. Sir Keir’s renegotiation is seen by some as merely a prelude to a much deeper and more complex negotiation in the years to come. As it happens, some well-connected figures in Labour predict that the real action will come in the manifesto for the next election, with a commitment to negotiate an entirely new EU treaty. Think of it, as one EU official puts it, as a “further step in the process of normalisation”, which will “open a space for a different kind of conversation” down the line. The future of the Brexit story will be made not in giant leaps but in baby steps.
但一些歐盟外交官更傾向於從長遠角度看待問題。
現在顯而易見的是，基爾爵士的「重置」並不會帶來對脫歐協議的重大結構性改變。相反，它將成為英國緩慢重新接近歐盟的漫長過程的一部分。正如一位官員所言，「真正的重置」其實始於基爾爵士的前任——里希·蘇納克（Rishi Sunak）。蘇納克推動了解決北愛爾蘭貿易問題的協議，並促成英國重新加入歐盟科學研究計畫。而基爾爵士目前的重新談判，對某些人而言，只是未來更深入、更複雜談判的前奏。
（事實上，一些與工黨關係密切的人士預測，真正的變革將出現在下屆大選的競選綱領中，屆時可能會承諾談判一份全新的歐盟條約。）
正如一位歐盟官員所形容的，這是「正常化進程中的又一步」，將為未來開啟「另一種對話空間」。脫歐的未來，不會通過巨大的飛躍來塑造，而是一步一腳印地前行。
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