Hello, welcome to the Centre for European Reform podcast. I'm Charles Grant, the CEO's director.

I'm joined here today by Sophia Gaston, who's a visiting

fellow at King's College London. Welcome, Sophia. Thanks for having me. Well, you like me are

thinking ahead to the UKU summit on May the 19th. So let's talk a little bit about the summit

and what we might hope to achieve at the summit or not. Perhaps to begin with, we can consider the

geopolitical context. How do you think the state of the world, in particular, the antics of Donald Trump and the behaved Vladimir Putin are affecting the summit? Is this having an impact on the way the UK and the EU want to achieve some sort of reset?

Well, we knew the summit was important well before the American elections and, of course, Donald Trump coming into office. I mean, I think it was always

going to be a core priority of the Labour government to try and improve relations with the EU.

They have a huge thumping pro-EU parliamentary majority and I think there'd been a lot of party

discipline before they came into power in the recognition and understanding

that when in government, Kirstama would be seeking to go much further and building on the work

that Rishi Sunak's government had done to improve relations and try and move things into a much

more functional space. That said, obviously, the situation with, you know, where the United

States is and its sort of recalibration of its global role and its relationship to Europe

increases the incentives for both sides to really get their act together and come to the table.

And I think one thing that it has really done

is shone light on some of the kind of, I suppose, more politically intractable issues and sort

of put them in sharp relief as perhaps less viable and somewhat more absurd in the context of the geopolitical realities that we're facing.

So I think Donald Trump's election and the way in which his approach to transatlantic relations

has sent shockwaves throughout Europe as a region as a whole, has certainly, I think, focused minds

and given us the best possible

opportunity to pursue a more ambitious relationship.

...