‘The UK and EU Must Stand Together to Secure Ourselves Against the Threat from Trump’

Keir Starmer this week became the first UK Prime Minister since Winston Churchill to take part in French Armistice Day services, invited by French President Emmanuel Macron. 

Both sides had an interest in communicating friendship and diplomatic business as usual, mere days after a destabilising US election. Macron, with political troubles at home, likely wanted association with a recent election winner, and will have been keen to offer a hand of friendship from one of the EU’s key players to a Prime Minister deciding his terms for a reset of relations. 

Starmer has been keen to make an outward show of friendship to EU leaders since becoming Prime Minister, even if the details of the reset remain unclear. Both will have wanted to send a clear message that peace in Europe remains a priority; the commemoration of the end of war in Europe taking place in the context of the Russia – Ukraine conflict. 

Starmer and Macron discussed “Russia’s ongoing barbaric invasion of Ukraine and the appalling humanitarian situation in Gaza,” Downing Street said. No doubt the US election result, and Donald Trump’s unknown plans for continued support for Ukraine, featured heavily. 

Trump has repeatedly criticised the level of US support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia since the 2022 full-scale invasion and has promised to end the conflict swiftly, albeit without explaining how. 

Britain, France and other NATO allies argue it is essential to keep supporting Ukraine against Russia to protect the European continent as a whole.

Europe is not powerless to help Ukraine – collectively the continent has been the biggest provider of aid, allocating €118 billion ($126 billion) since the start of the conflict, while the United States has provided €85 billion, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

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But all are aware that Europe would find it near impossible to replace financial and military aid from the United States, including military resources such as F-16 fighter jets and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), should Trump pull out. 

The result is a continent on edge, as yet unaware of how the returning President plans to follow through on his pledge to end the war ‘on day one’, and what that would mean for Ukraine, NATO and European security. 

Trump has repeatedly called for European nations to put more money into NATO. “Trump has [said] for decades that he thinks America’s allies are freeloaders on America’s protection,” said former NATO official Edward Hunter Christie recently. 

In February, Trump said he would “encourage” Russia to launch attacks on any NATO countries he said were falling short of financial commitments to the alliance. The Biden administration denounced the remarks as “appalling and unhinged.”

Then-NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said any suggestion that “allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security. I expect that the US will remain a strong and committed NATO ally.” 

Stoltenberg’s successor, Mark Rutte, agrees, arguing that Europe “will have to spend more … It will be much more than the 2%. [Trump] is right, you will not get there with 2%.”

France had already used the possibility of a Trump presidency to urge other European countries to boost their military capabilities. 

“We cannot let voters in Wisconsin decide European security,” said France’s Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad, insisting Europe need to urgently decide how to navigate a world in which Washington can no longer be counted upon. “It is our European security,” Haddad said. “We need to be capable of supporting [Ukraine].”

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 some countries have raised defence spending. In 2014 only three NATO member states met the 2% target; now a third – 23 states – do. The UK will reach 2.5% of GDP by the end of the decade. Likely due to their proximity to Russia and Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics already spend 4% or more of GDP on defence.

Key figures in Brussels are persuaded. During his confirmation hearing in the European Parliament, the EU’s soon-to-be Defence and Space Commissioner Andrius Kubilius told MEPs it was time for NATO to raise the target. “We need to discuss [whether] the 2% target [is] enough,” Kubilius said. “From my point of view, it is not enough.”

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In the midst of this fractious, uncertain context the UK and EU are setting out on a wider reset of relations. Both sides want more clarity from the other: David McAllister MEP, foreign office committee chair in the European Parliament, has taken to quoting the Spice Girls – ‘tell us what you want, what you really, really want’ – when asked his view of preliminary discussions. 

But one thing both sides agree on is the need for closer security collaboration. UK Defence Secretary John Healey has already concluded a security pact with Germany, something both sides see as a downpayment on a wider EU-wide agreement. 

The EU is generally loathe to discuss any change to the main post-Brexit agreement, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, yet senior EU figures have referred to defence and security as a ‘missing chapter’, an omission to be rectified. 

The question then comes: how to fast forward UK – EU security collaboration given the urgency of the situation in Ukraine and uncertainty over US policy from late January onwards. 

Our new Independent Commission on UK-EU Relations report sets out one credible route. Its principal recommendation is that urgency demands a gradualist approach: much can be achieved through regular coordination and a combination of existing options for association with EU policies, including a Framework Participation Agreement providing for UK contributions to EU missions, an Administrative Arrangement in the area of defence-industrial cooperation, UK accession to PESCO projects and an agreement on secondments.

Far from detracting from NATO, a UK – EU security agreement would aid EU – NATO coordination, buttress the European contribution to NATO, and aid the overall coordination of the messy institutional landscape of European security.

Neither side should let defence and security get lost amid negotiations on a wider reset. The need, wider uncertainty and potential costs are too great. Both sides should aim for quick wins, choosing to trust each other despite the mistakes of the last decade, to the benefit of Ukraine and the continent as a whole.