Britain should rejoin the EU to ‘fix’ Brexit, Ursula von der Leyen says as she admits ‘we goofed it up’

Britain must rejoin the European Union to “fix” Brexit, the European Commission president said late on Tuesday.

“We messed up,” Ursula von der Leyen admitted during one interview in Brussels wondered whether Britain could ever reverse its Brexit settlement.

“First of all, thank God. With the Windsor Agreement we had a new beginning for old friends. Very important,” she said at an event organized by the Politico website.

‘And then I have to say: I keep telling my children: you have to solve it. We messed up. You have to fix it. So I think here too the direction of travel and my personal opinion are clear,” she said without elaborating.

While there are no plans for Britain to rejoin the European Union, Labor leader Keir Starmer has promised a review of the post-Brexit trade deal if his party wins the general election, expected to take place next year .

Ursula von der Leyen (L) meets British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the AI ​​Safety Summit in Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, Great Britain, November 2, 2023

During her interview with Politico, Ms von der Leyen said that undoing Brexit is a problem for the next generation.

She also noted the bloc’s shared challenges in reducing dependence on China and its extractive industries.

“For 20 years, China has been buying up one mine after another around the world, taking the raw material, processing it in China and having a monopoly on some of the crucial raw materials, such as lithium for clean technologies,” she said.

“This is why I said we need to reduce the risks, and not decouple from China… because that wouldn’t be in our interest and I don’t think it’s viable.”

She also noted that Ukraine has now met “more than 90 percent” of the conditions for joining the EU.

Ms von der Leyen is coming to the end of her first term as Commission president and has not yet announced whether she will stand again in the EU elections in June.

Under her leadership, steps have been taken to increase cooperation on trade and research deals with Britain, supported by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

The signing of a new ‘Windsor Framework’ Brexit deal for Northern Ireland in February was widely hailed as a diplomatic success.

It sought to overcome trade issues with the Northern Ireland Protocol that had not been ironed out in the original Brexit deal, while “securing Northern Ireland’s place in the Union” and addressing the “democratic deficit.” felt in the original protocol.

British MPs overwhelmingly backed the revised arrangement, with 515 votes beating down opponents’ 29 – although former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss pushed back on the new deal.

Speaking in February, Ms von der Leyen said: “This new framework will allow us to start a new chapter. It will deliver sustainable solutions that we both trust will work for all people and businesses in Northern Ireland. Solutions that respond directly to the concerns they have expressed.’

Since then, Brussels has approved the UK’s participation in Horizon, its flagship €95.5 billion (about £82.62 billion) research and innovation project, and the Copernicus Space Program – a boon for Britain because it plan to restore its place as a science and technology superpower by 2030 with an investment of £370 million.

Ms von der Leyen has pushed for clear support for closer cooperation with Britain over the years.

Last October, she tweeted: “In these difficult times for our continent, we count on a strong relationship with Britain to defend our common values, in full respect of our agreements.”

While acknowledge in 2020 that “our partnership cannot and will not be the same as before… because every choice has a consequence, and every decision a compromise,” she urged the British to “choose cooperation over isolation” and “your governments to hold on’. responsible’.

Other European politicians have voiced support for Britain’s return to the bloc as the continent bears the weight of Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Guy Verhofstadt, former Prime Minister of Belgium and sitting MEP, wrote this week on X, formerly Twitter: ‘David Cameron says the obvious. The UK and the EU must work together to defend democracy and freedom against Putin’s imperialism.

‘Why not join us again?! The best answer to the autocrats and their experts in the West who want to divide us and destroy liberal democracy.’

In September, France and Germany suggested a restructuring of the EU membership system so that Britain can rejoin as an associate member, rather than as a full member.

Rejoining the EU would likely be a long and complicated process that would take several years.

Polling this month it emerged that 57 per cent of people in Britain now think leaving the EU was a mistake, compared to 33 per cent who still believe it was the right decision.

The share of people who do not know whether this was the right decision or not has remained relatively constant since 2020, between 11 and 14 percent.

Research from Changing Europe (UKICE), a British think tank, has also found that only nine percent of British voters believe Brexit went well.

But 61 percent of Leave voters believe this will ultimately work out for the best.

The bloc’s approval ratings in Britain reached one high during the pandemic, when more Britons had a positive view of the EU than their own country government.

At 60 percent, this was the highest score since Pew began polling on the subject in 2004.

Labor Party Leader Keir Starmer meets with Prime Minister of Greece Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not pictured) on November 27, 2023 in London, Great Britain

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak greets European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the Fairmont Hotel on February 27, 2023 in Windsor, England

In September, the Office for National Statistics revised its assessment of how well the UK economy did between 2020 and 2021, during the pandemic.

In the fourth quarter of 2021, GDP increased by 0.6 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, instead of a decline of 1.2 percent as originally reported.

Le Monde noted that if the new calculation is correct and the 2022 and 2023 statistics are not fully corrected, the UK economy was 1.5 percent stronger than pre-pandemic levels – comparable to France and better than Germany (0 percent), but worse than Italy (2.1 percent), Japan (3.5 percent), Canada (3.5 percent) and the United States (6.1 percent).

However, research The London School of Economics estimated earlier this year that Brexit was responsible for around a third of UK food price inflation since 2019, adding almost £7 billion to the UK’s grocery bill.