For now, Brussels is taking part in it cool. The message from von der Leyen was a well-recognized one: implement the offers we have already got, then we will actually speak.
“We’ve a set of strong agreements in place,” she informed reporters whereas standing subsequent to Starmer. “We should always discover the scope for extra cooperation whereas we give attention to the total and trustworthy implementation of the withdrawal settlement, the Windsor framework, and the [Trade and Cooperation Agreement].”
“Member states need to capitalize on the constructive momentum which appears to be there with Labour authorities in workplace,” one EU diplomat informed POLITICO. “Nevertheless it’s not sufficient to easily say one desires a reset, it requires precise work … there can solely be a reset if the U.Okay. strikes.”
‘Tone issues’
When pressed on whether or not his purple traces matched his rhetoric of a reset, Starmer informed reporters after the assembly: “Tone does matter. Resetting does matter. And that has been an important a part of the message that I’ve carried into the assembly as we speak: a return to pragmatism, to doing enterprise in a respectful approach and in a approach which I believe will give attention to deliverables somewhat than charging to the closest digital camera to make use of a megaphone.”
On the problem of youth mobility, he mentioned: “I’ve made it clear what our place is and particularly that free motion is a purple line. However as we speak wasn’t about these particular person points, it was about the way in which by which we’ll conduct these negotiations and the emphasis was on what we will do, not what we will’t do, and on deliverables somewhat than operating commentary.”
Diplomats from EU member nations mentioned additionally they produce other priorities, like securing long-term fishing entry in U.Okay. waters and simpler cross-channel power buying and selling.
Requested about fishing, Starmer mentioned “that actually was not the character of the dialogue as we speak.”
In a joint assertion issued after their assembly von der Leyen and Starmer “agreed to take ahead this agenda of strengthened cooperation at tempo over the approaching months, beginning with defining collectively the areas by which strengthened cooperation can be mutually useful, such because the economic system, power, safety and resilience, in full respect of their inner procedures and institutional prerogatives.”