UK should show EU it wants closer ties, says think tank

The United Kingdom should commit to improving relations with the European Union, an influential trade policy think tank says.

The European Centre for International Political Economy made the call as it published a road map aimed at bringing the two sides together.

The Brussels-based organization said European leaders are not sure the UK's position has changed since it left the bloc in 2020, under a previous government.

The UK's new Labour government, which came to power in July, should clearly signal it wants to work more closely with the EU, it said.

"Emotions around the UK's departure from the EU are far from healed, and this scarring is damaging the prospects," David Henig, a former civil servant and trade policy expert and author of the road map, told The Guardian. "The UK-EU relationship will always be time-consuming for governments, but requires change for these efforts to bring positive results."

Henig said "many across the EU" have not seen enough from Prime Minister Keir Starmer to believe the UK wants to reset ties.

The road map, titled "Negotiating Uncertainty in UK-EU Relations: Past, Present and Future", calls on the two sides to develop a joint "common work program", and embrace formal meetings between Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. It also urges annual EU-UK summits involving commissioners and ministers and suggests the UK promote the benefits of close ties with the EU.

But Henig said some senior people in the EU have negative feelings about the UK because "from an EU point of view, the UK left the club and bad-mouthed it extensively on the way out, while also wanting untouched trading privileges".

While Starmer has made it clear he will not try to rejoin the EU, he has called for closer ties with Brussels.

His Defense Minister John Healey told the Politico news website on Wednesday those closer ties will likely include a reboot of the 2010 Lancaster House Agreement defense pact between the UK and France, because the new government has been clear it will be "a government that would reset Britain's relations with Europe and especially with the leading European nations".

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