Is the EU back in vogue?

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08Today, is the EU back in vogue?

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0:59Now, I don't know how good your Hungarian is, but that is the sound of tens of thousands of Hungarians on the banks of the River Danube, chanting Europe!

1:16It's fair to say that the EU is having a bit of a moment. After Viktor Orban was defeated in Hungary on Sunday, his rival, Peter Magyar, promised to repair relations with the EU. Today, the Hungarian people said yes to Europe. They said yes to a free Hungary. Hungary will once again be a strong ally in the European Union and NATO. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, wasted no time in celebrating Orban's fall. So I would like to say that today Europe is Hungarian without any question. The people of Hungary have spoken and they have reclaimed their European path. But it's not just the new Prime Minister of Hungary seeking a better relationship with the EU.

2:01Lisa O’Carroll:We're in a world where there's massive conflict, great uncertainty, and I strongly believe the UK's best interests are in a stronger, closer relationship with Europe. Almost 10 years after the Brexit referendum, Keir Starmer is trying to reconnect with Europe too. We've got to look forward now, not backwards. Let's not just have all the old arguments of the last decade. Let's go forward and recognise that a stronger, closer relationship with Europe is in the UK's best interest.

2:34But does Europe want us back? And how strong is the EU anyway? facing a future without American support and with a belligerent Russia on its borders. From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pitt. Today in Focus, the EU after Orban and with Starmer.

2:57Lisa O 'Carroll, welcome back to Today in Focus. It's been a while. It has been a while, but it's really nice to see you. And you, of course, are a senior correspondent at The Guardian, our former Brexit correspondent, also a former Brussels correspondent. And I think that makes you the perfect person to talk us through what has already been a really dramatic week in European politics. Can you just start by telling me, why was the Hungarian election result celebrated so wildly by EU leaders? Indeed, as one of our reporters said, it was a bit like watching a World Cup celebration. Finally, I can say that I can be a proud Hungarian.

3:35after 16 years.

3:40I think one of the reasons why it was so extraordinary was the size of the majority that Peter Magyar won. Going into the election, on Friday even, we were thinking here at The Guardian and the polls were showing that there could be a late swing, but that it would be very close. And the fear was that Orbán, he would declare that the election was stolen and that would prompt a wave of, you know, yet more intervention from Vance and Trump. And that didn't happen. Yeah. And I'm not sure I've ever seen Ursula von der Leyen look so happy. She was coming out with phrases like, Europe's heart is beating stronger in Hungary tonight.

4:17You had the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez hailing Magyar's win as a triumph for European values. Why did it matter so much to these big EU figures that Orban was defeated? Well, Orbán has been an absolute thorn in the side of the EU for the last few years, even for the year or so that I was there. Every single council meeting, I had to deal with the challenge that Orbán would vote against whatever it was in relation to Ukraine.

4:44Lisa O’Carroll:It's simply anti-European when one person blocks decisions that are important for the entire continent or that have already been agreed upon. So it's the disappearance of Orban from those quarterly, sometimes monthly meetings. I mean, there was one meeting I remember where they were discussing a really key thing for Ukraine, which was the enlargement and whether Ukraine could be fast tracked into the EU. And Orban came in, said he wasn't going to vote for us. So again, it was going to be blocked. But they came up with this wheeze where Olaf Scholz, the then German chancellor, asked Orban to take a break.

5:19So he went out for a loo break and in his absence, the 26 voted in favour of an enlargement process, including fast tracking for Ukraine. So it allowed them to comply with their unanimity requirement, but also allowed Orban to go back to his own base and say, well, I didn't vote for it. Right. Did he know that they were going to do that or was it sneaky? Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. Right. It was a bit of choreography. But that gives you a measure of the frustration the EU leaders have felt over the last few years. Even FITSO, the Slovakian prime minister who is a close ally of Orban, would have pursued similar policies.

6:01But in the end, he usually folded. Orban never folded when it came to Russia. Right. And to what extent do you think it was the EU what won it for Peter Magyar? Because, you know, in his victory speech in Budapest on Sunday night, he promised that he was going to forge closer links with the EU. Do you think that that is what the Hungarian people were voting for? Or do you think it was more like they were voting against a closer relationship with Russia? Oh, gosh, I think if you speak to Hungarian reporters, and there were many in Brussels, they will tell you how public services have been completely deprived and neglected.

6:38The LGBTQ question, the control of the media, the appointment of urban friendly judges. You know, this is about the whole country changing and it is a massive victory for democracy. But I don't think the Hungarians were voting necessarily to be closer to the EU or to be rid of Russians, although there were some people saying, you know, you know, get out of our country, Russia. You know, they just want what they should have as a central, very developed democracy. They should have a GDP and a wealth system similar to any of the other Central European countries or France or Belgium or the Netherlands.

7:14And they don't. And so obviously the EU is celebrating the end of this 16-year reign of Viktor Orban. But do you think in terms of what Peter Magyar's politics are, could there be some elements of his personality, his policies that maybe won't align quite so closely with what the majority in the EU want. Yeah, let's face it, this is not a left-wing government. This is not a Sanchez. He is a centre-right politician who used to be in Orbán's party. He burst on the scene just two years ago, but he was very careful during the campaign not to get involved in discussions about LGBTQ rights. So we don't really know what he's going to do there.

7:54He was very careful on Ukraine, but we do know something about what he says about Ukraine. He's going to be pragmatic. He will de facto unblock the 90 billion that the EU had agreed in December to give to Ukraine because Orban had completely blocked that last month. And we don't know what it's going to be like on climate change. There are lots of other things in the EU that he may disagree with. And he's more right-wing than Orban on migration. He wants to get rid of guest workers.

8:34Europe's energy dependence has been cruelly exposed by the war against Iran. Although efforts have been made to diminish reliance on Russia over the past four years, the disruption to supplies of liquefied natural gas in the Strait of Hormuz shows how vulnerable the EU really is. Orbán's defeat comes at a very precarious time for the whole world and also of course for the EU and all EU countries are feeling the effects of the war in Iran and the ongoing fallout from the argument over the Strait of Hormuz and it all comes after a fairly relentless barrage of criticism from Donald Trump since he returned to the White House and then in the background you've got the rise of China, a belligerent Kremlin.

9:17I wonder how much all of these global events are feeding into a sort of greater sense of unity within the EU, this feeling that whatever differences they have, they are stronger together when coming up against these massive challenges. Yeah, I think that that is a fair way to look at it. If you think before Davos, which I think was January, the EU were heavily criticised for being weak on Netanyahu, weak on Ukraine, even though it's backing, you know, it's put huge money into Ukraine, but it doesn't have, couldn't produce the arms or the commitment to military funds as quickly as it should have been able to.

9:52And then they folded, apparently, the UK first and then the EU into a tariff deal with the US, which is not good for anybody. So I think then at Davos, we had Mark Carney, the Canadian premier, talking about the middle countries and how they had to stand together. In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice. compete with each other for favour or to combine to create a third path with impact. The middle powers must act together because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu. And that was at the point when Trump was talking about taking Greenland, wasn't he? Which galvanised European nations, really, to come to Denmark's aid and tell Trump that that wasn't on.

10:37And I think that was the first time we saw Europe find its voice and speak out about liberal democracies, of which Hungary is one. And I think from a UK point of view, we have seen Starmer certainly find some sort of metal in the past couple of weeks when it comes to backing Trump on Iran, similarly with France. Germany, less so. No, certainly. And you mentioned Starmer there, saying that he's found his metal in the past couple of weeks. And the other thing that Starmer seems to be doing with increasing confidence is talking about wanting to get closer again to the EU, to, if not rejoin the gang, to at least become better friends with our European neighbours.

11:23And this week, The Guardian broke the story that Labour are planning to bring in new legislation that will forge these closer ties between the UK and the EU. Can you just explain what this bill is setting out to do? Well, the bill is a necessary part of the reset that Labour campaigned for in its election manifesto in 2024. And then there was that EU-UK summit last year in Lancaster House. And there was a laundry list of things that the EU and the UK were going to try and agree on. And the main things were the highlights were Erasmus, the University Exchange Programme, the Youth Mobility Programme, which has yet to be agreed.

11:57And then a key thing is the what they call sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, which is to do with all the certification and standards of food and farm produce. So everything from wood and leather to cheese to frozen beef to vegetables, etc. etc. So those rules, the SPS rules, came in because of Brexit. So before, if you're a farmer, if you're a food producer, you could just sell in to the EU with no paperwork, essentially, or very little paperwork, because everybody followed the same rules. We're in the single market. Outside the single market, the EU or the UK is treated like Australia, China, India, and has to produce, you know, mountains of paperwork with all cargo.

12:42The choice I am putting to the public and the government is putting to the public is to take away the paperwork tax, the red tape, the costs that businesses up and down the country are paying every week to export to the EU. So the SBS agreement is about reducing that. It won't get rid of them, but it's about reducing it. And it won't mean that the UK is going back into the single market. But it does mean that there will be legislation to transpose EU law back into UK law where it counts. And on food and drink, there are 76 regulations laws that the UK no longer applies. So it has to realign. And that's what this legislation is about.

13:24I think what was significant about that was the suggestion that the legislation would include some sort of chapter that would allow the UK to move beyond the food and drink stuff that they're talking about now and move into other sectors. And they haven't specified what they're thinking about, but people who know this subject suggest things like medicines, AI, technology, services, financial services. And this bill, isn't there some controversy over the fact that it will deny MPs the right to vote on which of these 76 rules or any future rules that the UK will comply with, that it'll sort of speed up the process to such an extent that once again, Brussels is calling the shots and our own parliament is not sovereign?

14:09Yes, I think lots of our listeners will remember the whole phrase of, you know, taking back control, we're going to be rule makers, not rule takers. And And that was a big, big argument of the Brexit that Boris Johnson pursued. And he won on those arguments. So the irony is that Keir Starmer, the Labour government, which by and large voted to remain, is going to use these statutory instruments to push through alignment with EU law with very little say. So this legislation that the Labour Party are bringing in is using so-called Henry VIII powers to transpose EU legislation potentially into the UK statute books.

14:52And that essentially means it's a statutory instrument, so it's not debated in Parliament and it doesn't go through the normal parliamentary process. And it was the kind of process that was used by the Tories to exit the EU. The irony. I spoke to somebody in the Labour Party today who said, you know, everything isn't published yet. We've still got ways and means that we will be giving Parliament scrutiny. And, you know, this is the kind of thing that the UK did when it was in the EU. But the difference now is that the UK has no say in the legislation in Brussels. Quite. And how have the opposition parties responded to the prospect of this latest bill?

15:31And how Labour is essentially planning to bypass MPs later down the line? As you would expect.

15:37Lisa O’Carroll:It's the worst of both worlds. So we're not in the EU where we can have a say. and we are, but we're still taking the rules and we're not using our sovereignty. That's the worst of both worlds. We hear overnight as a continuing part of Keir Starmer's so-called EU reset that effectively he wants us to rejoin the single market. I'll just read, Andrew Griffith, Conservative shadow business secretary, said this bill would reduce parliament to a spectator. And Farage has made a similar argument saying that it would be a direct portrayal of the Brexit referendum. So that is to be expected. They don't have a majority in Parliament, so Labour can push this through.

16:23So do you think then that perhaps the likes of Andrew Griffiths have got a point when it comes to the sovereignty question, if we are just going to let the EU set the rules? Yes, yes. And how well do you think that this will play politically, especially with the May local elections coming up? I think it's complicated. I had to revise. I wrote about Brexit for many, many years. I think most people don't talk about Brexit. They have a kind of fuzzy feeling, yeah, I would like to be back in the EU. That's Guardian readers, that is. Yeah, or anybody at the airport facing a long queue. Yeah, but if you said, oh, Henry VIII powers or statutory instruments, people would just glaze over.

17:02And I think the problem for the Labour Party is that the reset that they cast at the summit with the EU last May in Lancaster House is a laundry list of small things. Erasmus, youth mobility, this food and farm thing, energy, carbon emissions. Where's the big thing that people can go, yay, as you said, queues at the airport. But that's free movement. That goes back to free movement. And we're not going to get free movement unless the UK goes back into the single market. But do you think, you know, if you outlined at the start of this conversation just how cumbersome the red tape is for exporters and importers, particularly the food and drink sector in the UK, wouldn't this closer alignment be good news then for not just for those people, but also for consumers if it eases the flow of goods and potentially makes them cheaper as well?

17:56Yeah, that's the labour argument that it will mean cheaper prices in the supermarket, but prices have gone up so much and the Iran war has pushed them up again. So what kind of differential would be needed to be caused by the reduction in barriers at Dover? It would have to be 20 % at least. It's not going to happen, is it? I'm sceptical that there will be a noticeable change in prices in the supermarket because something else will come along. Trump will do something else that will push the prices up for a different reason. But for For exporters, what's interesting is the figure generally is that 16 ,000 to 20 ,000 British businesses have stopped exporting or stopped exporting because of Brexit.

18:37It's a lot, isn't it? Yeah, and it's mostly the small to medium-sized businesses, the lifeblood of communities up and down the country that have had to recast their businesses because of Brexit. But there is always a but. So I spoke to the National Farmers Union a little while ago about the realignment in relation to rules. And we were talking about the 16 ,000 businesses like the cheesemongers up in Yorkshire, Cheshire, who no longer sell into Europe. And as the president of the NFU said, business is really, really competitive. The food business is really, really competitive. It will take years to rebuild market share that the UK had.

19:16And as he said, there aren't shops with displays going, you know, empty shelves going, waiting for a British product. There just isn't. So yeah, it'll reduce the paperwork, but I think a lot more will need to be done to get those small and medium-sized businesses to persuade them and give them the support that they need to get through. There will still be paperwork.

19:42And I know that you were in Brussels last month for a fairly major UK-EU summit. What were the vibes like there? Did it feel like both sides were equally enthusiastic about having a closer relationship? It is not a subject you hear of in Brussels. If you ring somebody, one of your contacts, and ask them to talk about the UK, dismissive might be too strong a word, but there's an antipathy to the subject. You know, you get sort of warm words most definitely on things like strategy and defence, military. But when it comes to this Brexit thing, it's not so much that it's toxic, but that's... Old news.

20:20That referendum was 10 years ago. I know. I can't quite believe that it's almost 10 years since the UK voted for Brexit. But it's interesting, isn't it, that Starmer is feeling more confident now to talk about this closer relationship. And why do you think that is? Because for the first couple of years of him being leader of the Labour Party, he was sounding so Brexity in spite of the fact that Everybody knew he'd been agitating for a second referendum before he became the leader. Yeah, indeed. And he was the shadow Brexit secretary and campaigned to remain in the EU. I mean, I think it puzzles Guardian readers as to why the Labour Party isn't more ambitious, why it's not more forthright.

21:05And I think in the early days, the fear was that Nigel Farage was on the move and that it would be bullish to raise Brexit. But I think now the political calculation seems to have shifted and the Labour Party with the elections coming up in May, you know, fear that they could lose the liberal left and the centre left to the Greens and the Liberal Democrats. I think that's the calculation and the membership of the EU is a key topic for that voter base, the liberal voter base. And many would probably want him to go much, much further than he is. Yeah and I suppose public opinion has also shifted in the past 10 years hasn't it?

21:46If you look at most of the opinion polls that have been done in the past couple of months they all seem to show a similar picture which is that a majority would now vote to rejoin the EU and therefore he's got more of the electorate behind him when he starts saying things as he did at the start of this month when he said Brexit had done deep damage to the UK economy and he said that renewing closer relationships with Europe would mean, quote, a partnership for a dangerous world we must navigate together. So I wonder if you think that this global picture, the global instability that we're facing right now, is also encouraging him to be more bold in pursuing this closer relationship.

22:24I think that's right, absolutely correct. I think the calculation is that your neighbours, the EU, they've always been the best partner to the UK. But having good relations with your neighbours and good trading relations means you have a healthy economy as well. I'm not saying that the reset as currently cast is going to mean much more. I think the calculations are could increase GDP by just one percent, which is negligible, really not noticeable. But given how unstable the world is and how unpredictable your supposed special relationship person is over in Washington, the EU represents reliability, durability, all those things you would like from a partner.

23:10Coming up, is Starmer putting the UK on a path to rejoining the EU?