Hot on the heels of his meeting with Macron, Starmer met with the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz last week. Clearly a lot of talking had been done under the radar beforehand, because an agreement- the Treaty of Kensington- emerged very quickly. This covers a range of areas as follows (I quote)
- diplomatic cooperation on broader geopolitical issues;
- defence and security;
- internal security and coordination on combating illegal migration;
- economic ties, science and research cooperation;
- fostering people-to-people contacts;
- cooperation on energy and climate policy.
I’m indebted to Nicolai von Ondarza of Chatham house for his analysis of the treaty. He made two further points
- Mutual support on defence is the ‘centre of gravity’ this treaty.
- Together with the Macron-Starmer agreements a few days ago, it recreates the E3 group: The UK, France and Germany. This trio has the potential to provide the hub of the (slowly) developing European security system.
Its clearly a grand plan, slowly manifesting.
However, part of the context provided by von Ondarza makes depressing reading. The UK has drifted away from Europe on many levels since 2016, and he offered two examples relating to Germany:
- The UK dropped from Germany’s third most important trading partner in 2016 to ninth in 2024
- school exchanges from Germany to the UK have fallen by more than 80 per cent since Brexit.
However, it looks as though someone is finally trying to reverse that.
derby4europe 