Benjamin Martill
Overview
In the late 1990s the United Kingdom and France pushed successfully for the development of a European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP, now CSDP) to augment the Union’s foreign policy with the ‘teeth’ necessary to undertake missions on behalf of the member states.
While Britain never invested quite as much as France (and other member states) would in the CSDP, security cooperation between the UK and the EU nevertheless became an important facet of the UK’s Europeanised foreign policy and a significant complement to NATO.
Yet recent years have seen this relationship undergo considerable shocks. Brexit tore apart many of the ties between Britain and the EU and did not spare foreign and security policy. Since the UK’s departure, a series of events – including the war in Ukraine and the election of a Labour government – have brought both sides closer together, leading to a gradual rapprochement and increasing engagement.
This commentary briefly summarises the most important developments and how they have shaped UK-EU security collaboration. It draws on a recent report published by the Independent Commission on UK-EU Relations on the topic which reflects discussions from a workshop with experts and practitioners hosted in the Summer by the UCL European Institute.
The Brexit Referendum
What Brexit would mean for the UK-EU security relationship was initially unclear. While Theresa May’s government confirmed Britain would leave the EU, both she and her EU counterparts hoped to maintain a close relationship in foreign and security policy. And there were hopes the low-salience of security issues in the campaign and the intergovernmental nature of foreign policy cooperation would enable this.
To this end, May proposed a comprehensive security agreement be negotiated as soon as possible, and while the EU was keen on the idea, it pushed back against UK proposals to be involved in decision-making and insisted any agreement wait for the onset of the second phase of the talks. Gradually it became clear that security would be treated almost like any other area of the talks, as the UK’s exclusion from the secure components of the Galileo programme testified.
May faced fierce domestic criticism of her Brexit designs after the Chequers Plan was deemed too ‘soft’ by Brexiteers, and her agreement was eventually rejected in the Parliament in early 2019. Johnson, her successor, committed to negotiating a security agreement, but opted in early 2020 not to include this area in the talks on the future relationship.
For Johnson, severing the security relationship was one way of signalling a harder Brexit in a domain where the costs would not be precipitously high, and from January 2021 the UK fell back on existing non-EU ties and sought new bilateral relationships. Contacts with the member states did not evaporate, but rather shifted into less efficient formats.
The Invasion of Ukraine
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 drastically altered the European security landscape. Solidarity among Europeans increased in the wake of the invasion as EU member states and the UK pledged to support the embattled government in Kyiv. Britain took a strong line in favour of ‘containing’ Russian aggression and pushed for others to do so, and Britain became a major contributor of military aid and a first-mover in key decisions.
The EU, for its part, became an increasingly important venue for strategic action, enabled by a combination of member-state unity as well as the limitations of NATO in a conflict characterised by high levels of economic interdependence and a fear of escalation.
The centrality of the EU was evident in the collecting of member state military aid, the decision to accept Ukraine and Moldova as ‘candidate countries’, successive rounds of EU sanctions, and efforts to diversity energy supplies.
The invasion itself, coupled with the EU’s increasing shift towards greater geopolitical actorness, increased the cost of Britain’s post-Brexit outsider status and brought about an increase in informal coordination between both sides.
High-level meetings took place between Johnson and von der Leyen, the UK attended a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council, the UK aligned itself to EU sanctions, contributed personnel to the Brussels-based clearing house for military aid, acceded to the ‘Military Mobility’ PESCO project, and supported the EU’s own training mission for Ukrainian soldiers.
Re-engagement did not prevent grandstanding on the UK side and trust in Johnson was low, yet practical engagement on-the-ground was successful. Further, when Johnson left office, his successors Truss and Sunak both helped to bring about a reset in the political relationship with Europe, and especially with France.
The Labour Government
Security cooperation stayed informal under the Conservatives. Partly this was down to the EU’s reticence to engage with the UK while the issue of the Northern Ireland Protocol remained unsettled, but even the agreement on the Windsor Framework under Sunak did not result in new strategic initiatives. On the UK side, pro-Brexit ideology among Conservative backbenchers continued to delimit what was possible.
Thus, on European security, while both major parties supported Johnson’s line on Ukraine, clear water emerged over the desirability of a structured relationship with Europe. Whilst in opposition, David Lammy, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, committed Labour to a formal security agreement with the EU should the party come to power.
Keir Starmer’s seismic victory in the July 2024 general election turned this pledge into policy and kicked off a process of increased political engagement, with exploratory talks in Brussels and the signing of a new bilateral agreement with Germany (LINK). Both sides have committed to six-monthly summit meetings beginning in 2025 and to working towards a more comprehensive agreement.
Security cooperation is an easy political win for Labour, allowing the party to improve relations with the EU in an area that does not cross many ‘red lines’ on either side. Moreover, Labour MPs have historically been more supportive of structured cooperation in foreign policy and of a more Europeanist line, and internal objections within the party will be minimal.
Labour perhaps hopes also that an improved security relationship will also feed into improved economic relations and potentially also a renegotiated basis for UK association. Yet if this is the case, the government is liable to be disappointed. Successive UK governments have sought to instrumentalise security and defence and have not succeeded.
Indeed, rather than strategic cooperation opening the door for economic cooperation, it is more likely to happen the other way around, since UK participation in EU defence initiatives is likely to be very difficult while the UK finds itself outside the internal market. Moreover, negotiations on a more comprehensive agreement will be difficult and will take time, placing more contentious items on the agenda and risking a re-opening of sores from the Brexit negotiations.
The Return of Trump
The re-election of Donald Trump as US President is the latest and most recent development in the European security saga. Trump’s election has spurred fears in European capitals concerning the credibility of NATO and the risk that a negotiated outcome would sell out Ukrainian (and European) interests to Moscow.
It is also feared Trump’s election will embolden populist movements within Europe, many of which have explicitly advocated decreasing funding for Ukraine. Pro-Kyiv governments in Europe fear it will be too difficult (and too costly) to hold the line and continue fending off Russian incursions in Ukraine.
Whatever Trump will do – and this remains unclear – the re-election of the Republican firebrand in the US makes UK-EU security cooperation more valuable. European solidarity has always peaked at times of transatlantic turmoil, and it was against the backdrop of the previous Trump administration that May sought to keep the UK within EU security and defence initiatives.
Enhanced coordination between the UK and the EU would help to hedge against any diminution in NATO’s credibility, provide a mechanism for coordinating the continued European response, and help ensure both sides of the English Channel are coordinated in their asks of the new administration.
Britain has often styled itself as a transatlantic bridge, while Europeans have feared an American Trojan horse in London’s actions. With the fate of Ukraine in the balance, now would be a good time for Britain to prove critics wrong and show its value as an interlocutor and a major strategic actor in Europe.
Benjamin Martill is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations and Associate Director of the Europa Institute at the University of Edinburgh. His research examines the politics of foreign policy, with a focus on Brexit and European security. He has previously taught at UCL.
Note: The views expressed in this post are those of the author, and not of the UCL European Institute, nor of UCL.
Featured Image: A man pushing a stroller in front of a tank in Kyiv, Ukraine by Dmytro Tolokonov on Unsplash
UCL EUROPE Blog 
Leave a comment