This will require more formal cooperation with Brussels on foreign and defense policy, including issues such as cyberspace, information and misinformation, said Niblett, head of Britain’s leading foreign policy thinktank. He said the move would not only strengthen Europe after “Vladimir Putin’s decision to dismantle post-Cold War security arrangements in Europe”, but would also indirectly help restore EU-UK economic trade relations. However, he warned: “There remains a danger that allowing these areas of disagreement and friction in the economic sphere to persist, and possibly erupt, will undermine the desire of both sides to forge a closer relationship in foreign and security policy. “As it is now even more crucial.” Niblett suggested that as parallel processes to develop a new NATO “strategic vision” and the EU “strategic compass” were under way, options for UK integration could be found, Niblett said. USA and Canada, in more regular transatlantic coordination. . “Otherwise the risk is that the United Kingdom could be excluded from deeper defense industrial and technological cooperation within the EU. “A more specific UK-EU security dialogue could also emerge from the Russia-Ukraine crisis. “This could include setting up a sanctions review team to ensure that sanctions are aligned with the timetable and objectives of sanctions, as well as the conditions for lifting them.” His ideas, which are likely to have an impact on Whitehall, are contained in a sweeping 70-page report examining how the UK has implemented the comprehensive external and defense landmark review over the years. Niblett argues that the United Kingdom has made progress in establishing itself as a world trading nation, adding that the United Kingdom was obviously ahead of Ukraine in education and armaments, but points to many weaknesses in aid, human rights, moral hypocrisy and financial performance. At the time of the publication of the Strategic Review, focusing on the UK’s Indo-Pacific orientation, criticism was leveled at its relative silence on the UK’s future external and defense relations, an issue that was deliberately left untouched in the final Brexit agreements with British insistence. Through the conflict in Ukraine, Britain worked on an ad hoc basis either bilaterally or through NATO, G7 or improvised group meetings. Foreign Minister Liz Tras attended a meeting of EU foreign ministers in early March, along with Ukraine and the United States, but Boris Johnson, for example, was not invited to attend the long meeting of EU heads of state last year. week in which Joe Biden participated. for further economic sanctions against Russia. Nibblet described Johnson’s competition in the EU as counterproductive at a time of great danger for Europe. “Continuing to feed a fractional relationship with this important neighbor’s poses clear risks to the UK economy,” he said. He also stressed that last year the UK had retreated from global health and poverty challenges due to aid cuts. Inconsistencies in human rights and climate change policies, including their relationship to the pursuit of new trade agreements, have “opened the government to harmful accusations of hypocrisy and inconsistency with the UK’s role as a proponent of liberal democratic governance”. . says the report. Niblett said: “As a fledgling solo force still re-emerging on the world stage, justified accusations of double standards and hypocrisy will be deeply damaging. “There will be no more valuable advantage in the future for Britain’s influence in the world than the reputation of consistency.” The way in which large cuts in the UK’s foreign aid budget were implemented, for example, “revealed a tough side in Britain”, which was further strengthened by its approach to refugee applications, not only from Ukraine but from all over the world.
