Sir Keir Starmer will on Friday be urged by European leaders to raise Britain’s offer on youth mobility and fisheries to unlock a deal with the EU at a historic summit between the two sides on Monday.
The prime minister is expected to hold eleventh hour talks with leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, in a last-ditch effort to end an impasse ahead of the UK-EU summit in London.
EU negotiators are dangling in front of Starmer a better deal for UK touring artists — a cause championed by Sir Elton John — and a long-term deal to remove barriers to agrifood trade, according to Brussels officials.
In exchange Starmer is being pressed to concede better terms for EU students and other young people wanting to travel to Britain, along with a long-term extension of current fishing rights in UK waters for France and other coastal states.
British officials say they expect Starmer to meet EU leaders on the margins of a summit of the European Political Community — a pan-European grouping focused on security issues — in the Albanian capital of Tirana.
One EU diplomat said: “There’s a view that, after Brexit, most of the ‘asks’ in this negotiation are British asks.” The Financial Times reported on Thursday that the 27-member bloc wants Starmer to make last minute concessions.
Other EU diplomats warned that the EU-UK reset — set to be signed at the first summit between the two sides since Brexit took effect in 2020 — must include a “fish for food” swap with Brussels.
“They have to accept a link between fish and [a food products shipping deal] and they are refusing,” said one EU diplomat, referring to a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement that would reduce barriers to trade in food, fish products and animals.
The UK has offered to continue current access to its fishing grounds for four years after 2026, but the EU wants at least seven, officials said. Brussels wants to tie the duration of the veterinary deal to the fishing agreement.
A vet deal and one to allow British musicians and artists to tour the EU were in the Labour manifesto, and Brussels is offering to compromise on the latter.
A senior official told the FT that it would be willing to amend the post-Brexit treaty between the two to allow British truckers and roadies to move freely between EU countries in return for a scheme to permit 18 to 30-year-olds to work and study in the UK more easily.
Starmer, speaking in Tirana on Thursday, said he would not negotiate with Brussels via “megaphone diplomacy” but insisted: “We’ve made good progress and I’m confident we will make really good progress into Monday.”
The prime minister said that a deal with the EU — including a security and defence pact — would mean that he had concluded agreements with India, the US and the EU within the space of three weeks. “That is incredibly beneficial for our country,” he said.
Starmer again declined to rule out what is expected to be a central part of Monday’s deal: that Britain would accept shifting Brussels rules — and “dynamically align” with new EU regulations — as part of an agreement to break down borders in food trade and electricity markets.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has criticised Starmer for being willing to compromise British “sovereignty”. She told a conference in Brussels that “we can improve our relationship with European countries, but not by being a supplicant”.
Starmer hit back at the Tory leader, saying: “Without knowing what’s in the deal with the EU, she says she’s against it. The only saving grace is that nobody in Europe takes her seriously.”
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