With divisions at home, the UK truss is looking to dissolve EU ties. WGN Radio 720
LONDON (AP) — After a bitter divorce and years of quarrels, the UK government seems to want to make amends with the EU.
The country’s new prime minister, Liz Truss, has her tax cut economic plan at home with her feuds with the financial markets, the opposition and her own Conservative bloc. Since taking office a month ago, European politicians and diplomats have noticed a marked softening of tone.
The truss and ministers say they want to settle a difficult dispute with the European Union over post-Brexit trade rules. I plan to travel to the Czech Republic for my first conference.
A few weeks ago, UK officials were sober about a new forum involving 27 EU member states, aspiring member states and the UK, the only country to leave the EU.
Now the government says Truss intends to play a leading role at the summit, where she used her opening speech to address the “strategic challenges” exposed by Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, particularly Russia’s Promoting unity against Europe’s energy dependence on oil and gas.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverley said the UK was looking at the new grouping “with an open mind”.
“We want to find ways to work better with our neighbors, partners and friends in Europe,” he said at the ruling Conservative Party’s annual conference this week.
The European Political Community has another advantage for a post-Brexit UK. This shows that “Europe has more than her EU,” said Cleverley.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine puts Brexit in perspective and has brought Western allies closer together. The energy crunch and cost of living crisis unleashed by the war have left governments in Britain and across Europe with more pressing problems to deal with.
The Truss office says she will speak at the Prague summit, saying, “Europe is facing its greatest crisis since World War II, and we have faced it together with solidarity and determination.”
“We must stand firm not only to ensure that Ukraine wins this war, but also to meet the strategic challenges that it has revealed,” she said. I am going to mention it in my speech.
The UK has also softened its tone, if not its stance, in its dispute with the EU over trade rules in Northern Ireland.
The deal for Northern Ireland, the only region in the UK that shares a border with an EU member state, is by far the most contentious issue in a UK-EU divorce. Agreed to release from checks. Because open borders are a key pillar of the peace process that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland. Instead, some goods entering Northern Ireland from other parts of the UK are subject to checks.
This solution developed into a political crisis for Belfast’s power-sharing government, with British Unionist politicians seeking to form a government with Irish nationalists, seeing it as undermining Northern Ireland’s position in the United Kingdom. are refusing.
With negotiations between the UK and the EU to resolve the issue stalled, the Johnson government introduced legislation earlier this year to suspend checks and scrap parts of the legally binding Brexit treaty. did. The unilateral move has resulted in legal action from the EU and the risk of an all-out trade war.
The Truss administration has not abandoned the bill and is slowly moving it through Congress. But Cleverley has stressed his warm relationship with EU Brexit chief Maros Sefkovic, with negotiators from both sides holding their first talks in months.
“I think there’s a realization that it’s in our collective interest to get this result,” Cleverly said.
Even Conservative MP Steve Baker, a Brexit hardliner who helped thwart former Prime Minister Theresa May’s attempts to forge closer ties with the EU, apologizes and improves relations. He promised to “work very hard” for
“I and others encourage Ireland and the European Union to trust us to accept that they have legitimate interests, legitimate interests that we respect. I didn’t do anything bad,” Baker said.
European leaders are welcoming but cautious. They want the UK to drop both the law that violates the treaty and the UK’s claim to remove the European Court of Justice’s role in overseeing the Brexit deal.
David Hennig, a trade expert at the European Center for International Politics and Economy, said: “We’ve had music with positive moods before, but I think there’s music with a bit better positive moods.” Come on, I didn’t expect it to come… I feel like there’s something there.”
“We have not yet issued Hallelujah that this is the beginning of long-term change,” Henig said. “But because of where it’s going, we’re taking it a little bit more seriously this time.”
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https://wgnradio.com/news/business-news/ap-with-division-at-home-uks-truss-seeks-to-thaw-eu-relations/ With divisions at home, the UK truss is looking to dissolve EU ties. WGN Radio 720