1. The Labour Government intends to conclude a 'defence and security pact' ('The Pact') with the EU next year and the likelihood is 'almost certain'. No events which would prevent this pact are currently anticipated. The only factors which might delay or even prevent would be UK public outrage which would require public awareness and/or US Government measures under a new Trump Administration, which would itself require high-level US Government awareness and intent.
2. The Pact is almost certain to include a foreign policy component because this is engrained in the requirements of the EU's 'participation rules' for what the EU calls associated 'third states' (ie non-EU states) involved in core components of its defence architecture. At present, only Norway is a third state with involvement in the EU defence architecture. As a result, Norway applies EU Common Foreign and Security Policy and additional measures, directives, benchmarks, financial contributions and secondments as required under EU defence structures.
3. It is almost certain that the EU intends to place the UK into the core components of its new 'defence architecture', because the EU ambassador to the UK has confirmed it. He said that The Pact is "the same template" negotiated by Robbins/May and offered to Johnson, which includes these core components. He additionally confirmed in specific wording that the core components of the EU defence architecture – the European Defence Fund, European Defence Agency and EU Permanent Structured Cooperation – all named in the Robbins/May 'template' would be "back on the table".
4. UK adherence to EU 'participation rules for third states' would require multiple UK commitments to avoid divergence from EU foreign and security policy (including defence) plus simultaneous commitments to create joint structures for back-office policy generation. Therefore, inputs and outputs would both be either aligned or least committed to not diverge or conflict. This situation would amount to the UK being in alignment on foreign and security policy even before the commencement of UK participation in EU defence programmes, payments and structures which themselves have aligning effects as described next.
5. UK participation in EU defence programmes, payments and structures, would bring additional incremental ratcheting effects towards both deeper UK involvement under EU defence architecture components and a deeper resulting adherence to EU policy, eg UK payments towards EU programmes incentivise deeper UK involvement in those programmes which mandates deeper alignment of policy.
6. Additionally, UK participation in EU defence programmes, payments and structures, would provide the EU with an enforcement mechanism against the UK in the event of non-compliance – the EU would be at liberty to take legal action against the UK threatening the loss of UK Government or UK industrial downpayments towards EU defence industrial schemes.
7. Labour had originally signalled an intention to sign The Pact immediately as its "first action in Government" but this was postponed. It is highly likely that the postponement was to avoid public resentment and to give the Government time to sell the deal to the public who are suspicious of Labour's respect for UK sovereignty in the context of the EU. A probable further reason for postponement of The Pact was to give the Government time to package the deal with additional items such as energy cooperation. This would a. give the EU additional punitive measures against the UK in the event of non-compliance with The Pact, b. give The Pact more resilience against unravelling by future Governments and, therefore, c. give The Pact a longer time to ratchet its effects.
8. The Pact, just like its template predecessor negotiated by Robbins/May, is highly likely to require a Security of Information Agreement (SOIA). This assessment is based on the EU's insistence on an SOIA as part of its initial proposal of 2018 through to 2020, as seen in EU slides of the time. The EU stated that an SOIA is a mandatory feature of 'third state' involvement in the many co-linked core components of the EU defence architecture, but particularly involvement in EU Space facilities, which is itself a mandatory feature of being an associated third state under EU Common Foreign and Security Policy. The EU has described its SOIA in language which includes a requirement for 'live' intelligence sharing as well as 'timely' intelligence sharing with the EU's Intelligence Directorate, Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity (SIAC) and EU Satellite Centre (SatCen). The most significant consideration for the UK in context of an SOIA with the EU is the knowledge that the EU will be equipped with a mechanism as described above to enforce further UK involvement and compliance at pain of financial and political risk. There is significant potential therefore that the UK's existing intelligence sharing platforms with the US under FiveEyes could be placed under pressure and for the US to become concerned about a new sliding scale of intelligence proximity between the UK and EU which the EU has powers to influence in its direction.
