Written evidence submitted by UK in a Changing Europe [EUR0008]

 

 

UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE) was launched in 2015. Its founding objectives were:

 

 

This evidence draws on published research:

 

 

Below, we have ordered our evidence under four key questions outlined in the call for evidence.

 

  1. How did the UK’s Permanent Representation to the European Union (UKRep) effectively promote and advocate for the UK’s interests and political priorities?

 

History and organisation of UKRep

 

UKRep was — and the UK Mission to the EU continues to be — one of the UK’s most important overseas diplomatic missions, with more than twice as many UK officials as the UK embassy in Washington, DC.

 

The origins of UKRep date back to 1952, when the UK Delegation to the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community in Luxembourg was set up by Prime Minister Anthony Eden. This developed into the UK Delegation to the Communities following the Treaty of Rome in 1958, becoming the permanent representation on the UK’s accession in 1973. Following the UK’s exit from the EU in January 2020, the UKRep became the UK Mission to the EU (UKMis), with the Permanent Representative becoming first the Ambassador in 2020 and now the Head of Mission.

 

Historically, UKRep sat at the heart of EU policy coordination in Whitehall, alongside the (variously named) Europe Unit within the Cabinet Office, which led the coordination system for EU policy in Whitehall, working closely with the Europe Directorate in the Foreign Office, as well as the Treasury and the PM’s office.

 

Leadership

 

The permanent representative was the head of UKRep. The permanent representative would escort prime ministers to European Council meetings and were central in ensuring strong links between domestic departments and UKRep, often travelling back to London on Fridays to meet with EU policy colleagues in Whitehall, notably at meetings jointly chaired with the EU sherpa in the Cabinet Office. When the UK system functioned well, the permanent representative was centrally involved in all aspects of major EU policy formation.

 

The permanent representative was generally (and exclusively, up until the appointment of Jon Cunliffe in January 2012) from the Foreign Office. However, the deputy permanent representative was drawn from a much wider range of departments – most frequently, the deputy came from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and its predecessors, but officials from the Treasury and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) have also held the role.

 

A crucial relationship in this system was between the permanent representative based in Brussels and the prime minister’s EU adviser, or Sherpa, based in the Cabinet Office in London. These two individuals were at the centre of policy formation in the UK system on EU matters. The permanent representative advised on the negotiability of policy positions at EU level, while the Sherpa had an overview of priorities in Whitehall, including those of the prime minister.

 

Expertise

 

Like other UK delegations to multilateral organisations, UKRep operated as part of the then Foreign and Commonwealth Office. However, although some staff in the representation came from the Foreign Office the majority of officials were loaned or seconded from domestic Whitehall departments. As a former UK Permanent Representative explained to us, “The great thing . . . was that the whole of Whitehall was represented there.” UKRep was best seen not as a Foreign Office department but as ‘Whitehall in Brussels’. In November 2019, shortly before the UK’s exit from the EU, UKRep was staffed by civil servants drawn from more than 20 domestic departments (in January 2021, this had fallen to 12).

 

Before the EU referendum, UKRep had only 120 full-time employees. This had been planned to increase temporarily to help manage the UK’s scheduled presidency of the EU in the second half of 2017. When the UK left the EU, the permanent representation consisted of around 175 full-time employees: two-thirds (around 110) were officials from Whitehall departments and the rest were locally employed staff (mostly, but not all, working in administrative or logistical roles).

 

By January 2021, the newly-formed UK Mission to the EU was almost a third bigger than it had been before the referendum, reflecting its role in supporting withdrawal and future relationship negotiations. It has reduced in size since and will reduce further.

 

 

  1. What were the weaknesses of the UK’s approach to representing its interests to the EU whilst it was a Member State?

 

UKRep always risked being seen by departments as the advocates of the EU’s position in Whitehall, whereas they saw their role as ensuring UK policy was developed with a proper understanding of EU reality. As a former UK Permanent Representative described to us:

 

“What I thought the permanent representation did not do well was liaise with Whitehall. I said, ‘I don’t want to see any telegram going out of the representation with the words ‘seen from here’ in it.’ The representation got itself in the position of, ‘Well, we are here to understand Europe and explain to you what Europe will or will not do.’ And it tended to give this atmosphere of, ‘Well, you may think that’s your policy, but seen from here that would never fly.’”

 

In terms of attracting people to work in UKRep, permanent representatives thought they still managed to attract good people, but there were also persistent concerns about officials being overlooked by domestic departments and falling behind their peers in terms of career progression when they sought to return. As a former UK Permanent Representative told us, “The example question they [potential recruits] always asked of me when I was trying to recruit them was, ‘Will I be forgotten?’

 

A former UK Permanent Representative describes the practical human resources support offered to staff in UKRep as “pretty appalling”: “We had examples of people moving out and being in temporary accommodation, with their kids four or five miles away in schools, but no car because they hadn’t managed to get one across yet, with the wife taking an hour’s worth of bus journeys when living in the flat below was another couple that had a car and was driving their kids to the same school every day. Those connections were just not made.”

 

 

One of the main disadvantages UKRep officials faced in furthering their careers was that a stint in UKRep failed to provide much managerial experience. Their equivalents in Whitehall were perceived have more directly transferable management skills for other roles. Many departments (with a few notable exceptions) did not particularly value EU expertise or negotiating experience.

 

That even applied in the FCO. The caricatured image of the Foreign Office has been that it is stuffed with Europhiles who idolise the EU. Yet there appeared to be dwindling interest in EU work within the department. A senior official described to us that: “Doing EU work was not very popular in the FCO. It’s never as glamorous as conflict-y stuff. Within the UK diplomatic system, greater prestige is attached to the likes of Washington, DC, New York (at the UN) or bilateral posts such as Paris and increasingly Beijing.

 

 

  1. Does the UK’s new institutional relationship with the EU—established by the Withdrawal Agreement and Trade and Cooperation Agreement—require a different approach to managing relations with the EU versus that followed before Brexit?

 

The UK has a unique relationship with the EU that does not perfectly replicate any of the EU’s other external relations. Norway and Switzerland have deep arrangements far beyond the UK’s. Conversely, Canada, Australia and the US have much less at stake in their relationships with the EU than the UK does, and fail to offer a perfectly replicable model either. However, the central fact is now that it is a third country operating outside the EU’s structures.

 

The structure of the new Mission reflects the new relationship. Four directors sit below the Head of Mission: Director, External Security and Development; Director, Economic and Finance Affairs; Director, UK-EU Partnership; and Director, EU Trade Policy and Northern Ireland. The UK no longer participates in internal EU negotiations since the UK left the EU. As a result, the role of the UK Mission focuses more on intelligence gathering and in communicating back to Whitehall EU developments in strategic areas for the UK.

 

 

The withdrawal agreement, and especially the Northern Ireland protocol, necessitates intense continued interaction in the EU–UK Joint Committee, to which the TCA adds a further complex set of governance arrangements. Moreover, as the TCA is far from being just a trade agreement, discussions will continue across a whole range of issues, from fisheries to police cooperation, to customs and social security. It will be this morass of committees, review dates and discussions that will structure the new UK-EU relationship and, in turn, will shape UKMis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rethinking influence

 

Outside the EU, the UK will have vastly less influence on it and EU policy will become less relevant (although far from irrelevant). As a former UK Deputy Permanent Representative explains, “You need to be much more selective and strategic about what you try and influence.” Resources freed up by not participating in internal EU negotiations will need to be redeployed towards intelligence gathering. Beyond the future relationship negotiations, politicians need to give the UK Mission a clear mandate on future strategy towards the EU.

 

A consequence of the UK being a third country is that it will have to shift focus to the European Parliament. As a former senior official in the UK Mission argues, “You have to put even more investment into your relationship with the European Parliament because that is the most open institution.” To be effective, this will require political, as well as official, engagement, and a more widespread recognition in Westminster of the importance of the European Parliament and the influence of MEPs.

 

Although the Government has other legitimate priorities, it remains in its core interest to ensure substantial diplomatic engagement not just with EU member states individually but with the EU institutions too. It needs to focus not just on maintaining but on building a body of in-house EU expertise to manage relations with the EU. Once lost this expertise will be much harder to recreate in future.

 

Engagement pertains not just to influencing the decision-making of individual member states but also staying abreast of important EU legislative developments coming down the line. As the UK in a Changing Europe’s series of ‘Divergence Trackers’ show, a significant amount of EU legislation has implications for the UK internal market because it requires Northern Ireland to conform to new regulations which the rest of the UK does not, creating potential barriers to trade across the Irish Sea.

 

Moreover, in other areas – particularly the regulation of big tech – new EU regulation seeks to reshape global regulatory standards via the ‘Brussels effect’, whereby non-EU businesses align with EU rules in order to maintain access to the lucrative single market. In such cases, UK businesses may feel obliged to follow new EU regulations, in order to maintain EU market access and international competitiveness.

 

For UKMis, there is an important role in getting wind early on of important changes coming down the line and communicating these to relevant Whitehall departments. This will allow departments to assess the implications for the UK and, where necessary, develop plans to respond to the changes in the best interests of the UK economy and its wider strategic goals. Good relations with the EU institutions, and a close monitoring of their business, will be vital to this intelligence gathering.

 

June 2022