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Ireland takes up the Presidency of the Council of the European Union today, and it has made clear that building a stronger relationship between the UK and the EU will be one of its priorities. For everyone who believes the UK belongs at the heart of Europe, that is good news.

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New polling commissioned by European Movement UK shows that the public wants the UK to begin charting a long-term path back into the European Union, with a clear majority backing a considered, decade-long plan rather than a rushed return.

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On Wednesday, at a packed event in Westminster Chapel to mark 10 years since the 2016 Referendum, pro-Europeans, politicians and thought leaders gathered to reflect on what the next 10 years might hold for our place in Europe - and the future that we want to build.

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The European Movement has existed since 1949. During the last 77 years, we have weathered many changes in the political winds that dictate Britain’s relationship with the rest of Europe, from the highs of the 1970s when we became part of the European Economic Area, to the lows of 2016 and the subsequent Brexit years.

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The question facing ministers is not simply how much Britain spends on defence, but how effectively that money is spent. In an increasingly dangerous world, closer UK–European defence cooperation must be central to the answer. 

By Sir Nick Harvey, CEO, European Movement UK 

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Yesterday, European Movement UK convened a roundtable with MPs and leaders in the cultural and creative sectors to mark the launch of our new report, Creating Culture Together: A Practical Reset for UK–EU Creative Cooperation, a practical roadmap for removing barriers facing musicians, performers and creative professionals working across Europe.

In the room were MPs Al Pinkerton and Anna Sabine, the Liberal Democrats' spokespeople on Europe and Culture, Media and Sport, respectively, along with representatives from The Musicians' Union, UK Music, The Independent Society of Musicians, The Featured Artists Coalition, the Association of British Orchestras, the Production Services Association, the Professional Lighting and Sound Association and many more.

As a result of the momentum behind our movement's recommendations, the Liberal Democrats have formally submitted all six recommendations from the Creating Culture Together report as an Early Day Motion in Parliament.

The six recommendations of the Creating Culture Together report are:

• For the UK and EU to agree a short-term UK-EU mobility framework for performers.
• Relax the cabotage rules now affecting UK and EU touring operations, so that productions can move equipment across borders without new and unnecessary restrictions.
• Bring the UK back into Creative Europe.
• Reduce customs costs and simplify carnets.
• Designate St Pancras International as a CITES port for musicians travelling by Eurostar.
• Clear the A1 certificate backlog and meet the 15-day target for issuing them.

This means that our movement's recommendations have been submitted by Dr. Al Pinkerton MP to the House of Commons in order to publicise what we are asking for and to gauge parliamentary support for our recommendations.

This is our movement influencing decision-makers. And this only happens because people across our movement have kept this issue visible, urgent and impossible to ignore.

Dave Webster, Head of International at The Musicians' Union, said:

"The roundtable was a welcome opportunity to again highlight the need for real progress to be made and to build on the commitments made so touring artists and the wider creative industries can actually start to see some tangible results from the reset between the UK and the EU.

"Congratulations to European Movement for producing an excellent report detailing the impact of the UK’s departure and the solutions needed to improve matters."

Now, as a member of the Cultural Exchange Coalition, the coalition of organisations campaigning to turn the inaugural UK-EU Summit's Common Understanding into concrete action, we will be driving this issue forward hand-in-hand with our partners in the creative and cultural sectors, both here in the UK and in Brussels.

A new report by European Movement UK highlights the difficulties faced by the UK's creative sector, ten years after the decision to leave the EU.

The report is available to read here.

Music venue owners like Mig Schallache, owner of The Louisiana, Bristol's iconic music venue, say performances by EU-based acts have reduced dramatically over the last 5 years - while UK bands now find touring and taking merchandise into the EU prohibitively difficult.

"Because of Brexit we're getting less artists from Europe. There aren't enough artists in the UK to fill diaries, so you need the influx to fill your books.

"Pre-brexit it was so much easier for bands to go to Europe and tour. Now it's just not feasible. It's just really sad not having that influence from Europe, European music coming across and seeing it live."

Watch our interview with Mig here.

UK musicians and artists have said consistently that working in the EU has become much harder since the UK left the bloc. New requirements for lists of equipment, visa issues and movement restrictions across EU borders for UK nationals have seen many lose work or stop touring the EU entirely.

The report recommends the government should:

• Agree a short-term mobility and work framework covering touring performers, creatives and associated staff, while tackling the issues hampering their EU counterparts in the UK.
• Relax cabotage rules affecting both UK and EU touring operations, enabling productions to move equipment across borders without unnecessary restrictions.
  
• Join Creative Europe, the EU's flagship cultural programme, with a commitment to participate in its successor, AgoraEU.

The UK can remove domestic barriers now, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy for UK creatives and for EU cultural professionals working in the UK.

Facts and Figures

• £145.8bn was contributed by the creative industries to the UK economy in 2024, around 5.5 percent of the economy.
• 2.4m+ jobs are supported across the creative industries, around 7 percent of the workforce.
• £8bn was contributed to the economy by UK music alone, including exports worth nearly £5bn.

A roundtable to discuss the report and the solutions available for solving the post-Brexit problems facing the cultural and creative sectors will take place on Tuesday in Portcullis House, Westminster, hosted by Dr Al Pinkerton MP.

By Public Affairs Manager, Joe Meighan.

The European Movement, along with many others, has consistently argued that Brexit has made Britain increasingly difficult to govern. If that diagnosis is correct, the solution is unlikely to be found simply through another change of leadership. Structural problems rarely disappear because of a new personality at the dispatch box.

That is worth bearing in mind amid the increasingly feverish speculation around Labour’s future leadership following difficult local election results. Pro-Europeans have understandably become animated by encouraging remarks from senior politicians who may one day seek to inhabit Number 10. The fact that politicians now feel comfortable speaking positively about Europe is, in of itself, a significant shift and should be welcomed. Only a few years ago, meaningful discussion about Brexit and Britain’s relationship with the European Union was politically toxic. Today it has returned to mainstream political debate as a serious question of national interest.

But while bold pronouncements on Europe are welcome, we should be wary of becoming consumed by personalities alone. Jockeying for short-term political advantage is inevitable in politics. However, politicians who overdo it at the expense of a clear, credible and consistent strategic vision risk not only paying an electoral price themselves but leaving the country to pay a far heavier one in lost prosperity, reduced opportunities and continued instability.

So, the European Movement does not take sides in leadership speculation. What we do ask of all senior politicians, whether currently in government or aspiring to it, is honesty about Britain’s relationship with Europe and realism about the scale of the challenge ahead.

That means recognising three things in particular.

First, Britain is in a considerably better place with Europe than it was during the era of “Get Brexit Done and never mind how”. Relations with the EU have improved markedly. Practical cooperation has begun to return, and agreements such as the UK’s return to Horizon and Erasmus+ demonstrate that constructive engagement can deliver tangible benefits for British citizens.

Second, the government now needs to build on that progress. The commitments made around closer defence and security cooperation, a meaningful youth mobility scheme and reducing barriers that continue to drive up food prices and costs for businesses must now be pursued with greater urgency and ambition.

And third, if Britain genuinely wants to repair much of the damage caused by Brexit, this is no time for rigid red lines. Europe will not seriously engage in a deeper long-term partnership with a Britain that still appears trapped by the political psychology of the Brexit years.

The European Union itself was not built in a single electoral cycle. European peace and cooperation were constructed patiently over generations. In that sense, there is something to be said for taking a longer strategic view of Britain’s place in Europe while remaining rigorous in our short-term ambitions.

There is an old observation often made about Russian strategic thinking: that Russia thinks in centuries while Western democracies think in election cycles. Whether entirely fair or not, there is a useful lesson in it. Political movements that want lasting change need both immediate ambition and long-term discipline.

Public opinion in Britain has clearly shifted in recent years. Many of the arguments about Brexit’s economic and political consequences that once sat at the margins are now part of mainstream discussion. Those in the pro-European movement may reasonably feel a quiet sense of vindication. We have been making many of these arguments for years. But politics is not simply about being right; it is about the country being ready to hear it.

The road towards a closer relationship with Europe is more open today than it has been for some time. That is meaningful progress. But the next stage will require patience, realism and strategic consistency, not simply another round of political personality contests.