Britain rejoins the EU foreign affairs council — for lunch

Good morning. A scoop to start: Armenia and Azerbaijan are targeting a peace deal before Baku hosts the COP29 summit next month, Armenia’s president told the Financial Times.

I’m in Luxembourg, where the EU’s foreign ministers — and a British special guest — are gathering for a council meeting which I preview below. And my climate colleague reveals new green policy proposals ahead of a meeting of environment ministers taking place concurrently.

Amongst frenemies

British foreign secretary David Lammy will seek to keep up momentum around warmer relations between the UK and the EU today, as the special guest at a regular meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers.

Context: The UK left the EU in 2020 after a slim majority of Brits voted to exit in a 2016 referendum. After years of Brexit negotiations and right-wing rule in London strained ties, Keir Starmer’s Labour party came to power in July pledging to “reset” those relations.

Lammy’s trip to Luxembourg, where he will start the day with a breakfast with the EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell, before joining the 27 EU ministers for lunch, comes 12 days after Starmer came to Brussels for talks.

His job should be easier than Starmer’s. The context — geopolitical crises such as the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East — means he can talk about security and defence collaboration. That’s far less controversial than issues such as closer alignment on trade, regulation or migration.

“We’re all hoping to hear something about British ideas on how to deepen the relationship . . . especially in the area of the security policy,” said a senior EU diplomat who will be present today. “More co-operation in areas like, maybe, [peacekeeping] missions.”

But there are still landmines. Most prominently: France’s objection to British involvement in EU-supported defence industrial joint projects, which Paris wants to keep inside the bloc.

“The willingness to turn up and attend means I think he will get a good reception,” said Mujtaba Rahman of Eurasia Group. “He’s been one of the [UK] ministers that has given the most definition to the ‘reset’ idea, including a far-reaching security pact.”

Lammy won’t be the first Brit to join a foreign affairs council since Brexit: Liz Truss attended an emergency edition in March 2022 in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But he’s the first in the best part of a decade to come with a positive agenda for EU-UK relations.

“This visit is an opportunity for the UK to be back at the table, discussing the most pressing global issues with our closest neighbours and tackle the seismic challenges we all face,” Lammy said last night. “UK security is indivisible from European security.”

Chart du jour: Ineffective

Russia’s sanction-busting shadow fleet of oil tankers has grown by almost 70 per cent year on year despite western efforts to clamp down on the trade.

Double down

Eleven EU countries have launched rearguard action to push the clean energy agenda, calling for Brussels to take up 17 different policy ideas to boost renewable power, writes Alice Hancock.

Context: In the wake of the EU’s gas crisis, development of wind and solar power shot up as countries rapidly tried to decrease Russian fossil fuel use. But that effort is not enough to meet the EU’s ambitious decarbonisation goals, according to the group led by Austria and including Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

“While we have already made significant progress in recent years, there are crucial next steps needed to accelerate the deployment of affordable and sustainable renewable energy sources and fully integrate them into our energy systems,” Leonore Gewessler, Austria’s climate minister, told the FT.

Among the demands sent to the European Commission are more guidance for member states to share costs and benefits of renewable energy resources, more targeted legislation to speed up permitting processes and clearer rules for hydrogen.

The countries also recommend introducing a “Green Loan Standard”, akin to the bloc’s Green Bond Standard, which defines “green” activities for investors in line with the EU’s financial taxonomy.

The paper was sent to the commission ahead of what is set to be a fraught meeting of EU environment ministers today amid deep divisions over whether to support nuclear power in the bloc’s negotiating position for the UN’s COP29 climate conference in November.

France, backed by several eastern European countries, wants nuclear power to be included as part of a pledge to “accelerate zero-and low-emission technologies”, according to the latest draft of the negotiating document — a stance in line with the final decision of last year’s COP28 conference in Dubai.

But Germany is staunchly opposed to even one mention of nuclear in the document, according to an EU diplomat, while other countries that signed the renewables document, such as Denmark, are not anti-nuclear but are against using EU funds to support atomic projects.

What to watch today

1. EU foreign ministers meet.

2. EU environment ministers meet.

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