Following the EU-UK summit last month, I’ve finally got my ducks in a row on trying to track the substance of what follows.
You’ll recall that apart from the Security & Defence Partnership, there was not a single definitive legal instrument. Instead, there was lots of language about ‘working towards’ things or ‘exploring possibilities’: all very nice, but not really enough in an era of questions about the depth of international commitments.
Hence the tracker. As I’ve noted in my Bluesky thread on this, I’m only tracking those elements that seem to produce a formal agreement between the parties: potentially the list could grow, but let’s wait and see.
Rob Francis has written that Commission mandates for SPS, ETS linkage and Youth Experience aren’t coming until the autumn of this year, so formal negotiations seem unlikely until the back end of 2025. Given that each of these could throw up a bunch of issues (such as how much the UK is prepared to accept EU rules, and how much this is going to cost in contributions), reaching an agreement on any of these by the time of next spring’s summit looks hopeful.
Hence the tracker covers the entire lifetime of this Parliament.
Of course, if polls continue to be as unclear as now, the shadow of a non-Labour government is liable to cast a shadow on any negotiations from about 2027 onwards (given the time it’ll take to conclude, ratify and implement any individual deals), so this is the best opportunity for both sides to nail things down and minimise the chance of new administrations making bold choices.
As for the rest of the list, I’ve seen nothing to indicate timelines. Even if most of it is highly technical, it’ll still need work and political attention, something that’s been in short supply so far.
So the big question is whether long-term incentives will outweigh short-term distraction.
