Partners in Europe

"We have an overwhelming interest in building an efficient, competitive and outward-looking European Union for the 21st Century. A Union, which can both build on its current achievements and adapt to the ferocious pace of global change which will confront us in the new millennium." - Tony Blair, November 1999

On 1 January 1972, Britain entered the European Community. But French-British post-war cooperation in Europe has a far longer pedigree. As well as co-founding the Brussels Treaty Organization, which became the Western European Union, they worked together from 1948 in what was to become the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development; and from 1949, in the Council of Europe. They still do.

As regards the goal of the European project, Britain and France agree with the insistence on the continuation of the role of the nation-state in Europe.

In the realm of Defence, Britain and France seek more effective cooperation among member states to increase the visibility and coherence of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

The two countries are also committed to improving cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs.

The United Kingdom and France believe that enlargement of the Union must be carefully and successfully managed in the interests of the future member States, and of the current member States. This is why the EU itself must get ready for the first wave of accessions by carrying out international reforms as soon as it can, in order to make enlargement possible.

France and Britain are committed to taking forward the comprehensive agenda of economic and social modernisation agreed at the Lisbon Summit. Good progress was made at the Feira (19-20 June 2000 ) and Nice (7-9 December 2000 ) European Councils including adoption of the Small Firms Charter and the social agenda designed to modernise the European social model.