European diplomatic sources say fisheries 'will have to be part of a \[defence\] 'package' since it is so important to some member states'
Sir Keir Starmer’s hopes of clinching a defence pact with the European Union as part of his Brexit reset may be scuppered over demands it is tied to a deal on fishing.
Britain has been negotiating the security deal with Brussels since last summer as part of the post-Brexit reset talks but it has made scant progress as both sides dig in on key demands.
Starmer had been hoping that he could quickly reach an agreement with the EU in order to open a potential closed EU defence industry market to the UK.
But in a blow to his reset – and despite the close collaboration with French President Emmanuel Macron in building a “coalition of the willing” to support Ukraine – there has yet to be a breakthrough in the negotiations on the security deal.
France and other EU countries are insisting Britain sign up to a fisheries deal and a youth mobility scheme – both key sticking points in reset negotiations – before they agree to any such pact.
One European diplomatic source told _The i Paper_ that there was a “general sense in Brussels” that fisheries would have to be part of a defence “package” as it is “important to some member states”.
“The feeling is that it would be very helpful to get this somehow out of the way – even if only for a positive atmosphere for negotiations,” they added.
Both sides blame each other for the deadlock on a security deal, even as they battle to wrap up the talks before a groundbreaking summit between Starmer and the EU on 19 May.
France is backed by other EU member states in insisting that the UK should agree to the deal guaranteeing continued access to British fishing grounds after the current deal expires in June 2026.
Other EU countries say the UK still needs to provide a concrete response to proposals from Brussels last year for a youth mobility scheme – widely backed in both Britain and the EU, yet resisted by the Government amid fears that it could raise migration numbers.
On the UK side, there are demands for a veterinary agreement, mutual recognition of professional qualifications, and mutual recognition agreements in key sectors – although they are not tied to the security pack.
UK officials say the EU demands will bog down talks and could jeopardise a much-needed defence pact at a critical time for Europe, but in Brussels has accused the UK of having too many red lines and refusing to contemplate any of the EU’s concerns.
“The UK says it wants a reset, but so far it has been lacking in ambition,“ said one EU official. “There is give and take in any negotiation, and the UK needs to show it can compromise for a bigger prize. It should not try to go back to cherry-picking.”
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The planned security partnership would be akin to deals the EU has with six countries, including Norway, South Korea and Japan, and would also open the door to giving UK companies more access to the EU’s new €150 billion defence loan scheme.
It also comes as US President Donald Trump calls into question Europe’s security architecture, threatening to withdraw from NATO as well as pulling US support for Ukraine.
Sweden’s EU affairs minister Jessica Rosencrantz on Tuesday urged London to wrap up the fisheries deal as part of Starmer’s bid to “build trust” between London and Brussels.
Labour MP Stella Creasy, who chairs the Labour Movement for Europe, told _The i Paper_ that there was still a huge trust gap between the UK and EU, almost nine years after the Brexit vote.
“All the diplomatic efforts by the government cannot make up for the damage that Brexit has done,” she said. “There’s still a lot of anger about how the UK behaved in Europe in previous years and, like youth mobility, how we work with colleagues on resolving the concerns about the botched Brexit fishing deal is a test of the Government’s commitment to the reset.”
Creasy indicated that the Government would have to do more to show that it had turned the page. “For our European colleagues who put up with the antics of Truss, Johnson and Frost, we have to do more to be clear how we are different to them, even if we think it is obvious,” she said.
Sir Julian King, the UK’s final EU Commissioner before Britain left the bloc, said the two sides needed to compromise.
“There is a long tradition in the EU of pursuing package agreements and saying ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’. But there is a risk that the pursuit of a grand package slows everything down,” he wrote last week. “Some issues, like defence capability development, need to be addressed urgently; others may need more work.”
Nicolai von Ondarza, an analyst at Berlin-based think tank Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), agreed that the two sides still need to rebuild trust.
“At the end of the day, this is reminiscent of the old Brexit negotiations failures. Rather than setting out what it wants and can realistically get, the UK government did little to set expectations on defence cooperation,” he said.
However, he said the EU had opened the door to Starmer to wrap up the deal before the May summit.
“This negotiation looks to me pretty straightforward – the ambition to sign such an agreement is there for May, and it will be the opportunity to work out where the UK actually wants to participate in EU defence initiatives,” he said.
“There will be talk about fish. But the political direction is now set.”