Sir Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen will on Thursday finalise plans for a new UK/EU defence pact and an agreement on the sensitive area of fishing rights, paving the way for negotiations on a broader economic deal.
The British prime minister and European Commission president are expected to announce a defence and security pact and a rollover of current fishing arrangements at a summit on May 19.
Multiple officials briefed on the discussions said the defence deal would build trust and open the door for sensitive talks on issues including a new youth mobility scheme, energy co-operation and a removal of barriers to trade in food and agricultural products.
British officials said Starmer expected to hold talks lasting an hour with Von der Leyen in London on Thursday on the margins of an international energy security summit. “They have a strong personal relationship,” said one.
While a UK/EU defence pact is seen as a big prize in its own right by both sides given Russian aggression in Ukraine, the deal is expected to be accompanied on May 19 by a document setting out co-operation in other areas.
“The plan is to publish a document setting out a common way forward,” said one EU diplomat briefed on summit preparations. A British official added: “May 19 will be the starting point.”
The awkward issue of fishing is expected to be solved by agreeing a continuation of current fishing quotas in UK waters for at least two years, giving EU boats the certainty demanded by France and other coastal states, according to three people familiar with the matter.
In return, UK defence companies would qualify for access to a possible €150bn in EU-backed loans to fund weapons purchases under the bloc’s Security Action For Europe (SAFE) project.
Brussels has legally nonbinding security deals with six other countries, including Norway, Albania, South Korea and Japan, but UK and EU negotiators have been discussing a potentially deeper bilateral partnership.
The SAFE scheme will allow EU members to issue bonds backed by the EU budget, lowering the cost, outside Brussels-mandated fiscal limits. The scheme is designed to fund purchases of weapons from manufacturers in EU member states and countries who have a security pact with the EU.
“European defence policy is not conceivable without the UK,” said a senior EU diplomat. “That’s why the UK needs to be closely involved on SAFE — just like Norway.”
Several member states have put pressure on France to agree to the deal, but Paris insisted on preserving access to UK fish stocks at the same level after June 2026, when a deal done at the time of Brexit expires. Some member states are still pushing for at least a five-year deal on fish.
The two sides are expected to deepen co-operation on energy, such as improving electricity trading between the UK and EU, likely for a longer term to reflect the time it takes to build infrastructure such as electricity interconnectors.
The summit declaration will also set out a road map for future talks on relinking the two sides’ carbon emissions trading systems. “There will be a common understanding that could include a veterinary deal, ETS and youth mobility,” an EU diplomat said.
“It’s still a moving target, but the mood music is certainly positive. There is credible hope there could be a landing zone by May 19.” One Downing Street official said: “There’s a real desire on both sides.” Another senior UK official put the chance of a deal at “75/25 “.
An EU diplomat said that while the fight over fishing rights had been delinked from plans for a security pact, there remained “intense negotiations” over other elements of the deal.
That would comprise security, mobility and migration, relinking energy markets and a ‘veterinary agreement’ to remove border checks on animal and plant products being traded across the Channel.
Significant gaps remain to be resolved on the question of a youth mobility and the rights of artists to tour the EU, a key UK demand.
But EU officials said that London had accepted the principle of “dynamic alignment”, where the UK would automatically accept EU rules and standards and the European Court of Justice as the final arbiter on questions of EU law.
The sensitive question of how disputes would be resolved, and how the ECJ’s jurisdiction would operate in practice, is still to be negotiated.
“The more immediate question is on how the UK will operationalise the application of dynamic alignment and the mechanisms that will allow it to transpose EU rules into UK law,” one added.
