\n<\/p>\n
The EU is hoping to urgently reboot talks on the \u201creset\u201d of relations with the UK as negotiations are in danger of foundering before a planned July summit.<\/p>\n
At a public meeting of the EU-UK parliamentary partnership assembly in Brussels, the European Commission vice-president and trade commissioner, Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d, said both sides had to \u201cchange gears\u201d now to ensure the deal got over the line.<\/p>\n
Deadlock over the tuition fees EU citizens would pay in a proposed youth mobility scheme is a major challenge, he said, while the UK\u2019s trade minister, Chris Bryant, said that talks on a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement was tricky because of the amount of legislation needed in the British parliament.<\/p>\n
\u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d told the MPs and MEPs on Monday that finding agreement before the next summit \u2013 pencilled in for early July \u2013 was \u201cvery ambitious\u201d.<\/p>\n
But he added: \u201cWe need to change gears and work through complexities.\u201d<\/p>\n
He repeatedly called for a compromise on tuition fees, the first time he has spoken publicly on the issue since a so-called \u201ccommon understanding\u201d or formal agenda for a reset between the EU and UK was signed off last May in Lancaster House.<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer, the prime minister, has put agreeing a new deal with Brussels at the centre of his economic and foreign policy, and is hoping to announce a number of agreements at the summit this summer.<\/p>\n
While talks on SPS and on emissions trading rules are well advanced, the two sides are deadlocked over whether EU students should be charged the same fees as British ones rather than the higher international ones, which they currently have to pay.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo come to an agreement on the youth experience scheme, we will need a solution of tuition fees,\u201d said \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d.<\/p>\n
The disagreement threatens to scupper not only the planned summit but also the broader plans to realign with the EU, which the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will highlight in a speech on Tuesday as central to her growth agenda.<\/p>\n
Officials have told the Guardian that Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister in charge of negotiations with Brussels, is already working on which other parts of the economy would benefit from following EU regulations.<\/p>\n
Thomas-Symonds has instructed officials to conduct a \u201cscoping exercise\u201d to find out where companies are already complying with EU rules and so it no longer makes sense to apply separate UK ones. In return the two countries could then remove border checks on those goods.<\/p>\n
It is understood that the government believes all sectors apart from <\/strong>financial services and some hi-tech industries such as artificial intelligence might benefit from this approach.<\/p>\n Brussels sources said the UK is looking to draw up an agenda for the 2026 and 2027 reset, with a deal on touring artists, mutual recognition of professional qualifications and the elimination of costly dual regulation of chemicals high on the UK\u2019s priorities.<\/p>\n At the parliamentary assembly \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d also revealed one element of the 2020 trade and cooperation agreement signed by David Frost that had failed \u2013 a deal to allow people servicing equipment and machinery in the UK to have work visas for up to 180 days.<\/p>\n \u201cOnly 49 visas were granted in 2025. That is a very low number of visas and shows the scheme does not work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Attempts for a wider realignment are likely to be put on ice, however, if the two governments cannot find a way past the student fees issue.<\/p>\n \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d said EU student numbers in the UK had collapsed and it was vital in \u201cthis very turbulent world\u201d that relations between future generations were fostered through education in each other\u2019s countries.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should avoid the situation where we would be depriving our young generation from the common knowledge, common history.<\/p>\n \u201cI know that it is challenging, it is difficult, but I believe that on both sides of the channel there is a strong wish from elected representatives of the people that we should solve this problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n EU students before Brexit represented 27% of the student population but the intake for the 2026-2027 academic year is 5%.<\/p>\n The \u201cslow\u201d and methodical nature of talks didn\u2019t help, said Bryant.<\/p>\n \u201cOur system is very slow and let me put it this way, the European Union isn\u2019t much faster. And when you put the two of us together, I don\u2019t think it drives the pace of change that actually all of our voters and our communities really, really want and actually need economically.\u201d<\/p>\n Thomas-Symonds said he took onboard the sense of urgency MEPs and MPs were looking for.<\/p>\n \u201cThe message I take from this room very much today is about putting our foot on the accelerator,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Labour MP Stella Creasy said the UK was still \u201cmarriage\u201d material and hoped that the competing voices in the party leadership, those insisting on red lines and those wishing to move closer to the EU did not stymie a deal.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is precisely because we are not yet willing to go bigger that these negotiations are turning out to be so hard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The EU is hoping to urgently reboot talks on the \u201creset\u201d of relations with the UK as negotiations are in danger of foundering before a planned July summit. At a public meeting of the EU-UK parliamentary partnership assembly in Brussels, the European Commission vice-president and trade commissioner, Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d, said both sides had to \u201cchange<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[680,696,715,3391,2731,18128,415,1456,2719,4251],"class_list":{"0":"post-46895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-calls","9":"tag-deal","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-failing","12":"tag-reboot","13":"tag-reset","14":"tag-stop","15":"tag-talks","16":"tag-union","17":"tag-urgent"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}