A transcript of Ambassador Serrano, and Commissioner Šefčovič’s introductory speech/letter to the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly’s 6th meeting.
Meta
This transcript of Ambassador Serrano, and Commissioner Šefčovič’s speeches/letter to the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly’s 6th meeting in the Palace of Westminster was constructed by scraping the transcript from the youtube stream which is the UK’s formal record of the meeting.
The paragraph formation is mine, and I have converted some of Youtube’s spelling from US to British English and deleted some of Youtube’s double word insertions.
Minister Symmonds-Thomas’s speech is hosted on the gov.uk site. I asked Commissioner Šefčovič for a copy of his letter, but his office pointed me at the UK government’s record of the meeting, which it seems is the youtube video.
Ambassador Pedro Serrano’s introduction
Thank you very much, Madame Co-chair.
Mr. Co-chair, dear Minister, for the Constitution, European Union Relations.
Dear Nick, what an honour and pleasure to be here with you and with all of you, distinguished members of Parliament. I’m really honoured to be here at the sixth meeting of the EU UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly.
I have to start by expressing regrets uh the regrets communicating transmitting to you the regrets of the EU’s co-chair of the partnership council commissioner for trade and inter-institutional relations Marus Sevkovich who is unable to be here with us today in fact he’s addressing EU ministers at the general affairs council as as we speak and he has uh requested me to address the assembly on his behalf before reading out his message.
I just want to say how much I agree with the words that have been just spoken by Minister Thomas Simmons, by Nick um on the crucial nature of this relationship, of the turning point that was uh the May 19th summit of of of this year, of the fact that we are facing common challenges in Europe and we have to respond by joining forces the with the UK and the European Union joining forces and we will have a stronger uh Europe and indeed we have a very ambitious agenda, an agenda on prosperity, on security, on defense, people-to-people contact.
And this is what we’re trying to and we’re carrying out uh as as we speak with negotiations on quite a few of the elements that we’re agreed May advancing and and more to come.
But if you allow me now, I will read out the speech that um Commissioner Sefkovic would have delivered uh to you.
Maros Sefkovic’s letter, as read
Um to begin I would like to thank the previous speaker uh Minister Thomas Simmons who has provided the UK perspective on the state of play of EU UK relations.
With my address I hope to add to these remarks by providing the perspective from Brussels. I recall the assembly’s recommendation from its last meeting in March which was to strengthen EU UK partnership. We can note appreciable progress in this direction since then, not least with the first EU UK summit at leaders level here in London on 19th May.
My remarks on EU UK relations are divided in two parts. First, I will provide an overview of the implementation of the agreement underlying EUK relations and second, I will speak to our common understanding for the future of our relationship.
Honourable chairs, honourable members, firstly about the existing agreements. Both sides have reaffirmed their commitment to the full timely and faithful implementation of these agreements. This matters and needs to be reflected in concrete results. On the withdrawal agreement, there are a few points which I wish to highlight today.
First on citizens right and on a personal note here I do want to also express gratitude to Minister Thomas Simmons also for his personal engagement on all issues but on this issue also very very specifically. EU citizens and UK nationals must enjoy in full the
rights set out in the withdrawal agreement. While cooperation in this area remains constructive, there still remain 1.5 million EU citizens who need to transition from presettled to settled status in the UK. So, our attention is needed here. While the overall cooperation remains a constructive, systemic issues persist and our UK counterparts have heard our concerns, and we trust they will be addressing them.
Second, the Windsor framework. Progress in implementation has been made across many areas with vast flexibilities rolled out for the benefit of people and businesses in Northern Ireland in the areas of agri food, medicines, customs, trade, VAT, and excise to only quote a few. The framework, however, represents a careful balance between flexibilities and safeguards. The latter are essential for the protection of the EU single market while avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland. A lot of work has been done but more remains to be done by the United Kingdom to deliver in full the safeguards, not least in the areas of customs and Sanitary and Phytosanitarymeasures. with respect to an EUK agreement um Gibralt uh I’m sorry with respect to an EUK agreement on Gibraltar we’re working very hard in order to finalize the legal text after the political agreement reached in June.
Turning now to the trade and cooperation agreement. We continue to assess this agreement as serving our interests well. Thanks to the TCA, we cooperate with our UK partners in many policy areas, ranging from trade through energy and fisheries to law enforcement and union programs.
At the same time, we can acknowledge that not all of our discussions are easy. For example, the Commission has been engaging with our counterparts on the UK decisions related to the closure of waters where sand-eel are fished.
Another example where the EU and the UK must engage constructively is the Commission’s recently proposed steel measure. This measure seeks to tackle the negative trade related effects of overcapacity on the EU steel market. This measure will have an impact on our major steel trading partners including the United Kingdom. At the same time, the commission’s proposed measure foresees a similar regime to the current one as regards the trade flows of UK originated steel from originating steel from Great Britain to Northern Ireland in line with the Windsor framework commitments and solutions. We have engaged with the UK authorities with the United Kingdom authorities on those issues and in particular why excluding the United Kingdom from its scope was not possible. We will have the possibility to discuss the specifics of the country allocation of quotas and per category in our bilateral engagements.
Moving now to the renewed agenda. It is a little less than six months since our leaders met at the first ever EU UK summit in London. It marked a new chapter in EUK relations. Our joint ambition to deepen the relationship was agreed and set out in the common understanding adopted at the summit. We are working hard to deliver on our objectives.
Within one month of the summit, we formalized our political agreements on fisheries and energy, providing predictability for our fishermen, women, and continuously extending energy cooperation. We are now ready to start negotiations with United Kingdom for a Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement and an agreement on linking the Union’s and the United Kingdom’s emission trading schemes. Discussions on all other issues have also started, notably security and defence, the UK’s association to Erasmus Plus, youth mobility, electricity, law enforcement and judicial uh cooperation, and irregular migration.
In particular, the following developments are worth mentioning. The negotiations with the United Kingdom on the conditions for its participation in the SAFE instrument are at a critical phase. We would need to find an agreement particularly in relation to financial contribution before the end of November deadline for the submission of national plans.
In order to strengthen our people-to-people contacts, a key commitment of the renewed agenda, we are in active negotiations for a youth experience scheme. Our joint aim is to give our young people opportunities including for cultural, creative and educational exchanges. In her September remarks advocating an ambitious scheme, Chancellor Reeves said that she wanted young people to have the same opportunities to come to the United Kingdom as her generation had to travel in Europe. We are in full agreement. We have seen also a drop in the number of EU students studying in the UK by 57% in 2023-2024 as a consequence of Brexit. We think this is unfortunate and we would like to tackle the root causes of this problem. We are also working hard to reach an agreement on UK participation in Erasmus Plus. This issue cannot be looked at through a financial lens only. We believe in the importance of this program for building bridges between our people and building on the things that we have in common as Europeans. As President Von der Leyen has stressed, Erasmus Plus is key for creating a better understanding of each other. We truly hope that we will be able to find solutions.
Believing that close cooperation on electricity is in both the EU and the UK’s interests, we are exploring with the United Kingdom the parameters for the UK’s possible participation in the EU’s internal electricity market. Of course, such participation would require respecting the integrity of the internal market and ensuring a genuine level playing field.
Furthermore, we’re deepening our cooperation across wider security issues, irregular migration, law enforcement, and judicial cooperation. We will continue our efforts to implement this renewed agenda in a manner which ensures a balanced outcome for the eur European Union.
Honourable chairs, honourable members, minister, we are convinced that a stable and positive relationship between the EU and the United Kingdom based on our existing agreements is in our mutual interest. The common understanding shows that we can inject dynamism into the relationship in identifying new areas for cooperation in our mutual interest. I have no doubt that this partnership assembly will continue to play a key role in promoting and facilitating mutual understanding in the EU UK relationship.
I look forward to hearing your views and be pleased to answer questions you may have.
Thank you very much. [Applause]