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Last week’s agreement for the UK to join the EU’s Horizon research programme ties up the last loose end of the arrangements governing Britain’s exit from the bloc — at least in a narrow sense. In a broader sense, “unfinished business” is the very definition of how the relationship will continue to develop.
Just for starters, terms for fishing rights, electric vehicle trade, and financial sector access have to be updated in the next few years. And that’s only what’s programmed into existing agreements. With Horizon settled, attention in the British political debate keeps circling around the broader future of the EU-UK relationship. The looming question is how (and when) the striking pro-European turn in British public opinion will trigger new political choices.
Contrast that with the silence in the EU and its member countries on what the next steps with the UK might be. The silence is not strategic; it is simply not a question anyone is giving any thought to — for several excellent reasons.
One is that there is no point thinking about it without a fundamental change in UK politics. Perhaps a Labour government led by Sir Keir Starmer will seek a closer form of association, despite his effort to make voters believe the opposite. But until then, there is nothing for the EU to decide beyond managing the relationship, such as it is.
Also, the EU has more important business to attend to. Russia’s assault on Ukraine and its energy war on Europe, relations with China, the green transition and other priorities push a difficult but mostly harmless neighbour off the list.
While the bloc’s own preoccupations warrant this relative neglect, they are still going to transform what we may call the EU’s British question, in radical if unintended ways. What the EU does for reasons unrelated to the UK nonetheless has implications for the bloc’s future relations with Britain. And these are worth taking note of — not least because they may include previously excluded opportunities.
The political necessity of bringing Ukraine closer to and ultimately into the EU has opened questions that were firmly shut while the UK was in the process of leaving. Remember Brexit tsar Michel Barnier’s “ladder” of available relationships? EU leaders are now seriously considering much more “progressive” — ie finely graduated — forms of association, though this thinking applies to countries headed into the EU rather than out of it.
Many ask, for instance, whether Ukraine or other candidates could enjoy some benefits of membership before joining in full. I have argued before that it makes perfect sense for Ukraine to join the European Free Trade Association and through it the European Economic Area — which essentially means the single market — as a way station to EU membership.
But it may take time to persuade all EU countries to digest permanent free movement for about 40mn Ukrainians. An obvious solution is to open the free movement of goods, services and capital first. That, however, means dropping the dogma that the single market’s “four freedoms” are indivisible, an idea which held such sway in the Brexit talks.
Then there are the EU’s internal transformations, which are making it more integrated in both scope and degree. In scope, because much broader policy fields — within energy, defence, industrial strategy, foreign policy tools such as sanctions, and even fiscal matters — have become subject to EU-level decision-making. In degree, because of the move to make that decision-making more efficient, with a push under way to expand qualified majority voting.
Consider Norway, whose EEA membership is the closest off-the-shelf model for a non-member. Internal EU developments have compelled the country to seek a number of add-on agreements to align itself with the bloc. In other words, even the 30-year-old EEA treaty, which “dynamically” injects new single market rules into Norway’s legislation, is not enough to keep up with deepening EU policy collaboration now extending far beyond the single market.
Both these tendencies mean the British question will be a very different one the next time it arises. There may well be a wider “à la carte” menu of relations than were available to the UK between 2016 and 2020. But the EU will also be a more cohesive entity in more areas where members pool their sovereignty. The union may find it useful to be more creative about British association, but always on its own terms. The UK may one day finally accept the role of a rule taker to join the single market, only to find that, like in Norway’s case, that is no longer enough.
martin.sandbu@ft.com
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