A LEADING Eurocrat has said he believes the UK’s relationship with the bloc “will be very complicated” post Brexit but appealed for Britain to work together to combat mutual security problems.
Sir Julian King, the EU’s security commissioner, set out multi-billion plans to upgrade defence and intelligence systems to protect the EU27 from threats such as the terror group Daesh and from cyber attacks which have targeted infrastructure and hospital services.
He told an audience at the University of Glasgow last night that it was in the shared interest of both the UK and the EU27 to work together.
“While the Brexit negotiations are the responsibility of my colleague Michel Barnier they come in two parts – try to reach an agreement on the UK’s exit and then starting the discussion on the UK’s future partnership,” he said.
“That future relationship will be very complicated, very complex. It can’t just be a reproduction of existing arrangements. The UK leaving the EU ceases to be a member state, ceases to have the rights and privileges or a member state. But if we are to rebuild a relationship it seems to me it is very important to have a broad discussion on what that future relationship might be.”
He suggested it may be more straightforward to get an agreement on security concerns than it has been on the future trade.
“There are these issues of security and it seems to me that there is a strong shared interest in providing ways of having the fullest possible co-operation.
“As we try and think about the future we keep in mind the different areas of working together and on the security challenge there is a strong shared interest between the EU27 on the one hand and the UK on the other in trying to find new ways of developing the closest possible relations.”
“Those resources are increasing. When we look ahead to the next EU budget which will be 2021 to 2027 we are going to significantly increase the amount of resources. We are going to give some €13bn for defence research and development.
“There will be €6.5bn to reinforce the capacity of the military to move around and deploy in Europe and we are doubling the amount of money to help police and internal security agencies grapple with global terrorism.
“We are tripling the amount of money available to better manage our borders as part of the collective effort to deal with the challenge of migration. We are finding €2bn of funding to cyber security research and development.
“The EU has become a more important security actor in recent years. Partly that is because of things the EU has chosen to do. But it’s about the changing nature of the threats and how we organise ourselves.Traditional defence challenges such as how to stop tanks crossing your border sit alongside challenges such as terrorism or cyber threats that require you to work together.
“As the nature of those threats are global. The people who are trying to engage in this activity whether they are terrorists like Daesh or international criminal organisations cyber actors - state and non state actors - they don’t really make any distinction between one country and another. They organise themselves in a much more integrated, cross border way and in order to counter or at least to mitigate those threats national authorities have to do the same.
“They have to think in new ways, that is why the EU has stepped into a new role in dealing with cross border threats or cyber threats against our infrastructure and our services.
“The threats are not just to business, they spill over into our everyday lives, whether it is disrupting travel or interrupting operations in hospitals.
“Some of the threats are attempts to manipulate or undermine the confidence we have in our democratic institutions.”
More than 200 terrorist attacks were planned in Europe last year – with more than half aimed at targets in the UK. Figures released by law enforcement agency Europol show there were 205 successful, foiled or failed attacks within the European Union in 2017. That was up 45% from 142 plots in 2016.
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