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EU countries have urged the UK to participate in Brussels-led peacekeeping missions, as London seeks to deepen security co-operation with the bloc.
Several EU ministers used a meeting with UK foreign secretary David Lammy on Monday to call for Britain to participate in the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy missions, people briefed on the discussions said.
CSDP operations deploy civilians and troops on peacekeeping and conflict prevention missions around the world.
The offer came as Lammy joined a meeting of the EU’s 27 foreign ministers in Luxembourg to discuss the prospect of deeper defence co-operation between London and Brussels, as part of a wider “reset” of post-Brexit relations.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to improve EU-UK ties after Labour won power in July, indicating that a security pact with Brussels, covering areas such as defence and energy co-operation, would be at the heart of that new initiative.
“We cannot change the past but we can define the future,” Lammy told the EU’s 27 foreign ministers over a working lunch at the Luxembourg meeting, according to three people briefed on his remarks.
The EU currently has 24 ongoing CSDP missions, involving some 3,500 troops and 1,300 civilian officials. Norway participates in the scheme despite not being an EU member.
Britain was not expected to announce CSDP mission participation imminently, “but they will do” eventually, one of the people said.
The UK is expected to take the proposals away to consider. UK officials signalled Britain is keen to strengthen co-operation with the EU and has not ruled anything out.
In a joint opinion article for Euronews on Monday, Lammy and the EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell said the UK and EU were “heavily engaged in responding to conflicts and crises. But we are always stronger when we work together to tackle these challenges . . . Yet there is still more for us to do to strengthen UK-EU co-operation in defence and security”.
Lammy said his attendance at the meeting was a “historic moment that marks our EU reset . . . The UK and Europe’s security is indivisible”.
Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has upended Europe’s security approach and sparked deep concern in Brussels over the EU’s defence capabilities, prompting many of its member states to call for closer ties with the UK, one of Europe’s most important military players.
Starmer met European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels this month, where they agreed to hold regular EU-UK leaders’ summits and committed to begin “strengthening our shared security and stability”.
Borrell said the talks with Lammy had been “excellent”, and that they would have regular meetings every six months.
“We started a new approach today to a new, shared future . . . particularly in security and defence,” he told reporters.
Borrell and Lammy had a short bilateral meeting on Monday morning ahead of the foreign affairs council, with Lammy then joining all 27 ministers over lunch.
Lammy’s attendance makes him the first British foreign secretary to participate in a regular meeting since the UK left the EU in January 2020, although former foreign secretary Liz Truss joined an emergency EU foreign affairs council in March 2022 called in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Aside from possible areas of joint co-operation, the talks with Lammy included the conflict in the Middle East, and western efforts to continue supporting Ukraine.
“We’re not going to repeat Brexit discussions,” said Dutch foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp of Lammy’s attendance. “But what is very important in this world full of turmoil, war and uncertainty is that we stand together as EU and UK,” he added.
