The EU and the UK have announced they will hold their next summit to discuss the “reset” in relations between London and Brussels on 22 July.
The summit, which will be held in Brussels, has been delayed several times, with talks over a youth mobility scheme allowing under-30s to work, travel or study in each other’s territory deadlocked in recent weeks, fuelling speculation the summit would be postponed until the autumn.
António Costa, the president of the European Council, confirmed the date at the G7 meeting in Evian on Tuesday.
“Close EU-UK cooperation is essential for our shared European security, resilience and prosperity,” he said. “We are working closely together to make our upcoming second summit on 22 July a success.”
The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, who could be facing a leadership challenge after this Thursday’s Makerfield byelection, said: “My Labour government is delivering on our promise to reset our relationship and put Britain at the heart of Europe.
“Together we will tackle the cost of living, boost jobs and create opportunities for young people.”
The head of pro-EU campaign group Best for Britain, Naomi Smith, said “whoever is in No 10 in July must recognise the increasing importance” of the bloc, and that even “signalling an intention to pursue membership” would help generate the political will to underpin rejoining.
The summit was originally supposed to take place in May but delays over the youth mobility programme pushed it back to the end of June, then early July.
Up until the last two weeks, senior EU diplomats expressed disappointment that the “momentum is being lost” in the “reset” that Starmer has so often promised since he took office in 2024.
Other key topics on the agenda are a food and farm produce trade agreement that will see red tape and physical checks on exports into the EU removed, with the UK agreeing to align with the bloc’s standards.
The sanitary and phytosanitary agreement is already agreed in part, with the UK recently unveiling some of the checks that would be removed, allowing food producers time to prepare for the implementation of the deal, probably next summer.
Talks are also progressing on an emissions trading system, which will allow the UK to align with the EU’s trading rules involving penalties for those products with high carbon emissions.
However, the UK’s resistance to some of the EU’s demands in a youth experience programme, including a restoration of the pre-Brexit home tuition fees for EU students, is thought to have held up the summit.
EU diplomats have warned there would be no summit without a youth experience programme, one of the few EU red lines in the reset negotiations.