To upgrade the UK-German relationship, we need ambitious parliamentary links
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Prime Minister Keir Starmer, May 2025 (Credit: The Presidential Office of Ukraine via Capital Pictures/Alamy Live News)
4 min read
In the coming weeks, a new bilateral treaty between the UK and Germany will likely be signed.
While Labour was in opposition, contacts with its sister party in Germany, the SPD, were strong, and after the 2024 general election, these bore fruit: in Prime Minister Keir Starmer's inaugural visit to Berlin, he and Chancellor Olaf Scholz in August 2024 tasked their foreign ministries with negotiating a wider bilateral treaty. Based on SPD-Labour contacts, the two defence ministers signed the Trinity House Agreement on defence cooperation in the fall of 2024.
Before the full friendship treaty could be finalised, Germany’s then-government collapsed – but the new government, now led by Friedrich Merz, has proven every bit as enthusiastic about the relationship with the UK, in particular on geopolitics. The coalition agreement between Merz’ CDU/CSU and the SPD specifically calls for this “friendship treaty” to be agreed and ratified.
Since the UK left the EU, the UK has been busy negotiating bilateral agreements with other European countries. These tend to focus on defence and foreign policy topics, and also statements of shared values. It is a popular approach amongst diplomats and indeed ministers, giving a focus to visits, and creating some new spaces for relationships after Brexit meant the UK lost its access to formal EU institutions and the informal opportunities in Brussels in which to meet like-minded partners. At their best, these bilateral agreements complement rather than conflict with the EU-UK relationship.
When it comes, the UK-German treaty will, no doubt, set up some useful strands of co-operation – on energy and climate, economic growth, internal security, migration and defence, for example. Regular fora for ministers and government officials from both sides to engage regularly are also envisioned.
We sincerely hope that the treaty does not confine itself just to encounters in Whitehall and political Berlin, but also finds ways of offering new opportunities for a much wider group of citizens – at a time when, sadly, ever fewer British schoolchildren are learning German, and for schools and young adults in Germany the cost and added Brexit bureaucracy of coming to the UK can be prohibitive. Resolving those problems will take some time.
Our argument is that there is an essential component that can be included in the Treaty itself and developed right now: links between parliamentarians. Germany already has a model for this with its joint parliamentary assembly with France, which meets twice yearly, alternating between France and Berlin, and with 50 MPs involved from each side. This would be an ambitious model. An alternative would be to foster links between select committees.
Why should there be a focus upon dialogue between parliamentarians as well as governments? First, in Germany and even more in the UK, the backbench MPs of today are the ministers of tomorrow, and fostering co-operation, building links, pays of in the long run. So often, informal channels of communication – the snatched coffee or beer; the periodic WhatsApp exchange – are just as important as formal meetings between ministers.
There are already established groups: an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Germany, and an equivalent in the German Bundestag. But the capacity of an APPG is limited, and membership tends to be amongst “true believers”, so doesn’t offer contact to the necessary range of MPs and peers. “Political foundations” in Germany (associated with political parties) also do a fine job bringing MPs in both countries together, but they face funding reductions, rarely work cross-party, and the UK Conservatives in particular do not have a clear equivalent in Germany, having left the European People’s Party.
At a time when it is so clear that Europe – inside and outside the EU – needs to pull more closely together and grapple with pressing common challenges, this treaty presents a real opportunity to pull Germany and the UK closer together through ambitious parliamentary links. We hope politicians on both sides seize it with both hands.
Dr Ed Turner is a reader in politics and international relations, and co-director of the Aston Centre for Europe. Nicolai von Ondarza is head of the EU/Europe Research Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).
