Friday

29th Mar 2024

France and UK to hold regular EU meetings

France and the UK are set to hold regular sessions together ahead of important EU meetings to "harmonise" their positions.

UK prime minister Gordon Brown will on Friday (20 July) meet French president Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris - it will be the first meeting since Mr Brown took over at 10 Downing Street last month.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

"They have decided to confer with each other regularly, in particular before big European meetings, to try to harmonise their positions on European issues as well as on international ones," spokesman for the Elysée, David Martinon, told the Associated Press.

This is not the only informal grouping of large member states. German and French leaders hold summits every two months and joint cabinet meetings twice a year.

Mr Martinon said that the relationship between German chancellor Angela Merkel and Mr Sarkozy worked very well in the meetings of the eight most industrialised countries (the G8), on talks on a new EU reform treaty, and more recently, when solving the problem of the management of Europe's biggest aerospace company, EADS.

Mr Sarkozy has long argued that the bigger EU countries should take the lead in steering the enlarged organisation, although this tends to rankle smaller EU countries who resent any suggestion of being dictated to by the big powers.

Meanwhile, the new UK foreign minister, David Miliband, held his first speech outlining the foreign policy challenges facing the Brown government on Thursday (19 July).

The UK's EU membership needed to become "a greater asset in foreign policy" he said, supporting the new treaty's proposal for a single representative for the bloc's foreign policy. "It just makes sense," he added.

US and EU breaking taboos to restrain Israel

The US abstained and all EU states on the UN Security Council backed a call for an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza, as Europe prepares to also blacklist extremist Israeli settlers.

EU warns Russia over Moscow terror attacks

Europe has warned Russia not to use the weekend's terror attacks in Moscow as a pretext to escalate its war in Ukraine and crackdown on internal dissent.

EU summit risks failing Gaza once again, Ireland warns

Austrians and Czechs might block an EU statement calling for an Israeli ceasefire, Ireland warned, as leaders met in Brussels amid starvation in Gaza. Israel's conduct of the war meant it had "squandered the support they had", Leo Varadkar said.

Opinion

Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Rather than assuming a pro-European Labour government in London will automatically open doors in Brussels, the Labour party needs to consider what it may be able to offer to incentivise EU leaders to factor the UK into their defence thinking.

Latest News

  1. Kenyan traders react angrily to proposed EU clothes ban
  2. Lawyer suing Frontex takes aim at 'antagonistic' judges
  3. Orban's Fidesz faces low-polling jitters ahead of EU election
  4. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  5. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  6. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  7. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  8. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us