Brexit: Bilateral Relations with European Union Member States

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Smith of Newnham]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what initiatives the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has put in place to strengthen bilateral relations with individual European Union member states after Brexit.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, we remain strongly committed to our bilateral relations with EU partners. We have an extensive and well-established diplomatic network throughout the European Union, which is the foundation for our efforts to strengthen bilateral relations. Since June 2016, we have strengthened this network and invested substantially in the relationships we need in order to develop our interests in Europe after Brexit. This is complementary to our efforts to establish a strong relationship with the EU institutions.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that Answer. Clearly diplomatic relations are important, but over the last 46 years the UK has built up a very intense set of relationships through membership of the European institutions. Ministers, parliamentarians and officials have regular contact with their opposite numbers from the other EU member states. When we leave the EU institutions, we will lose those informal relationships as well. Is a diplomatic strengthening of relations sufficient or do the Government also envisage thickening relations through party mechanisms and other means? If not, we are going to be not just outside the room formally but we will lose mechanisms for influencing our like-minded partners such as Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, it is important and I agree with the noble Baroness that relationships matter. Of course, not just in the context of the EU but in any relationship, the ability to pick up the phone and talk to a counterpart in any country is essential to extending our strength of diplomacy. In the context of the European Union, I shall give three examples. The noble Baroness mentioned Germany: we announced a UK-Germany strategic dialogue in April 2018, which will be at Foreign Minister level. We have also agreed a joint compact on global responsibility and a joint vision statement on defence, in October 2018, between the MoD and the German defence department. We also had a successful UK-French summit in January 2018, a successful UK-Poland intergovernmental consultation in December 2018 and let us not forget that, above other things, we have also had two recent state visits, one from the Netherlands and one from Spain. Our diplomatic efforts and our efforts at extending through other connections, including party mechanisms, all make us well placed to continue to strengthen our work together.