UK could join EU ‘outer ring’ after reforms, says Macron

BRITAIN could be offered a closer relationship with Brussels as part of a new Eu-dominated organisation, Emmanuel Macron said yesterday, as he called for drastic reform of the bloc.

France’s president advocated a “new European political community” allowing countries such as the UK and Ukraine the chance to choose their level of integration with Brussels.

The plan echoed Mr Macron’s previous calls for a Europe of “concentric circles” and could put the UK on the new organisation’s outer ring.

In an apparent riposte to Russian aggression, he said the organisation “would enable democratic European nations who adhere to our values to find a new space for political co-operation”.

Members would co-operate in areas including security, transport, energy and investment, and could make it easier for young people, tourists and workers to travel between the EU member countries, the newly re-elected Mr Macron said. He added: “Joining wouldn’t mean that you couldn’t in the future join the European Union. And it also wouldn’t be limited to those who have left the European Union.”

Mr Macron first mooted the concentric circles idea in 2018, to keep the EU together after the Brexit referendum.

However, the idea is treated with suspicion by Eastern European EU countries, which fear it would eventually condemn them to a second class of bloc membership in a two-speed Europe.

Hungary, for example, has long been at loggerheads with Brussels and is blocking EU sanctions on Russian oil and gas. Budapest may suspect the plan is a ploy by Mr Macron to shunt it away from the power centre of Brussels.

The UK rejected, on sovereignty grounds, EU offers to formalise its security and foreign policy co-operation in a treaty during Brexit negotiations.

Relations between London and Paris are poor, with Boris Johnson and Mr Macron clashing over Brexit, fishing rights and the Aukus submarine pact.

Mr Macron is more likely to be concerned over Ukraine, which has applied to join the EU but falls short of the qualifications needed to enter the bloc.

Speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, he said it would take years for countries such as Ukraine to meet the standards, and finding earlier ways to tie them to Brussels rather than Moscow was vital, given the invasion.

He called on Europe to invest more “in the sea, in the air, in the space” to face Russia’s threat as he championed his vision of a common European defence structure.