New legislation coming from Brussels should not “undermine” or damage the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the European Union, London’s new ambassador to the union has said.
Caroline Wilson, the UK’s envoy to the EU, cautioned against the 27-state bloc becoming “more insular and inward facing”, a likely reference to controversial Made in Europe proposals the UK government is concerned will disadvantage its businesses.
Proposed legislation being debated by member states in Brussels would give preference for public contracts and subsidies to EU companies in the steel, automobile and clean tech industries.
National capitals are divided over how narrow the criteria should be set, and whether European partners, such as the UK, Norway and Iceland, should be included. The French government is pushing to restrict the preferential treatment for public funding to EU member states, while Germany and others want a more open definition.
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The idea behind the Made in Europe push is to protect domestic industries being hollowed out by intense competition from Chinese rivals, though it has opened up a fault line in negotiations to build on an EU-UK post-Brexit deal.
Speaking on Wednesday evening, Wilson stressed how the supply chains of UK and EU businesses were “highly integrated”.
“We need to build on the progress made in the Windsor Framework and crucially ensure that no legislation coming down the track does damage or anything to undermine that progress,” she said.
Wilson, who took over as the UK’s ambassador to the EU in recent weeks, made the case for continued close co-operation. “I think the closely integrated Irish and UK economies demonstrate that resilience isn’t achieved by putting up barriers between trusted partners but by working together,” Wilson said.
London and Brussels should be working together to meet various challenges they are both facing, she said. “I do believe that we can’t truly respond to external threats by becoming more insular and inward facing,” the senior British diplomat said.
Wilson was speaking at a reception for Irish policymakers in Brussels organised by a lobbying firm set up by former Fine Gael junior minister Lucinda Creighton. The event was the ambassador’s first speaking engagement since starting her new post.
Earlier this week UK prime minister Andy Burnham said he was open to the UK rejoining the EU in the future, in a Labour Party conference speech that underlined how Brexit had done more harm than good.
The UK government and European Commission, the EU’s powerful executive that leads on trade policy, have been negotiating a reset deal, to build on the painfully teased out divorce agreement governing Britain’s exit from the bloc in 2020.
The two sides have spent months hammering out a deal. The work had been coming to a head when Keir Starmer stepped down, pushing the timetable for an EU-UK summit back by several months. It is now planned to take place in November.
An earlier outline of the agreement had included a visa programme to allow young EU citizens to live and work in the UK for about three years, and British young people to live and work in EU countries under the same arrangements.
The reset agreement is expected to remove customs checks on the trade of agri-food products between Britain and the EU.
European governments want the deal to end the practice of British universities charging steep international fees to third-level students from EU countries, though London had resisted conceding ground on that point.
Commission officials are waiting to see if Burnham’s recent comments about EU membership are matched by ambition for a broader reset agreement later this year.
