UK and EU must work together, bloc’s chairman tells new PM Sunak

The European Union and Britain need to work together to face shared challenges, the bloc’s chairman said on Monday after Rishi Sunak became Britain’s new prime minister.

Britain became the first country to ever leave the EU in 2020 after years of acrimonious Brexit negotiations that have left sensitive issues around the Irish border unresolved and weighing on ties between the 27-nation bloc and London.

But with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb.24 and related energy and cost of living crises engulfing Europe, the bloc still wants to have Britain as an ally facing challenges from geopolitics to climate change.

“Working together is the only way to face common challenges … and bringing stability is key to overcoming them,” European Council President Charles Michel said on Twitter.

European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, said last week after Liz Truss resigned as British prime minister that the EU mostly wanted to have a stable and predictable neighbour.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Truss’ successor would be his “number five” British leader, and Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, in power since 2013, quipped: “I hope I can recall how many British PMs I’ve survived.”

The EU has watched the political crisis engulfing Britain with growing consternation. But on Monday, EU officials and diplomats were cautiously optimistic about the prospect of working with Sunak, the UK’s third prime minister in less than two months

“The first thing is a profound disbelief and puzzlement about how bad things are going in the UK,” said one EU official.

With that in mind, the official added, Sunak is seen as a more reliable partner than Truss’ predecessor Boris Johnson.

“He seems to be more sensible than many other types in Britain nowadays. He did warn against Truss’ reckless economic policies. EU leaders want a rational counterpart in the EU, the question for us is if we have a reasonable partner there.”

“MORE CONSTRUCTIVE”

Another EU official shared a similar message.

“Things seemed a bit less complicated with Truss than with Johnson. But she’s gone,” said the person. “Britain has a lot to gain from a more stable relationship with the EU – more so than ever. So let’s see.”

An EU diplomat said Sunak has shown he understood the constraints of the market and hoped that, also due to U.S. pressure to sort out the Irish border, the bloc would see “a more sensible approach” from London.

The two sides are stuck on the Northern Ireland protocol, part of their Brexit divorce deal that sets trading rules for the British region that London had agreed before it left the EU but has since said are unworkable.

At stake are links between Britain and Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, the 1998 peace agreement that ended three decades of sectarian violence in the province, and the EU’s cherished single market of 450 million people.

Georg Riekels of the European Policy Centre think-tank in Brussels and previously a member of the EU’s Brexit negotiating team said the bloc has long signalled it was ready to compromise but got the cold shoulder from hardliner Johnson, and Truss.

“The opportunity for a reset is clearly there,” he told Reuters. “Now times are tough all over Europe… Once in Downing Street, [Sunak] would have many reasons to go for more constructive cooperation with the EU.”