Former Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström has called on the European Union to grant the United Kingdom access to its €150 billion Security Action for Europe programme, arguing that blocking Britain undermines European security. Billström, who oversaw Sweden's accession to NATO, told the Daily Express that the EU should tear down barriers preventing UK participation in the fund, which is intended to drive Europe's rearmament.
Talks collapsed over financial demands
Negotiations between the UK and EU broke down late last year after Britain rejected EU demands for a multibillion-euro contribution in exchange for access. The EU reportedly wants to protect the fund for member-state industries, imposing strict limits, conditions, and a financial fee on the UK. Britain, in turn, seeks meaningful access for its defence firms without paying an excessive entry fee or being treated as a junior third-country supplier.
Billström emphasised that Europe must pool its industrial strength to deter Russia. "That has been the message coming out from the US: you need to do more," he said. "Sweden’s position is that this is the right thing to do. We need to do more, and we need to be better at coordination and better procurement."
UK 'absolutely essential' to European security
Last year, then Defence Minister Al Carns blasted the collapse of talks, calling the failure to secure a deal "self-defeating" for European security. "The UK is absolutely essential to European security ... so to not allow it into a European defence fund is actually self-defeating if we're talking about a threat potentially materialising," Carns said.
Billström, who left politics in 2024 and now works in the Swedish defence sector, argued that UK involvement would strengthen collective security. "Sweden has been very much against the kind of walls that sometimes some countries, some member states in the EU, want to raise against non-EU members when it comes to procurement," he added. "We feel that the UK has a lot to offer, and that a closer relationship when it comes to security policy between the UK and Europe is only beneficial to both parties."
Brexit not a barrier to cooperation
Former Defence Minister James Heappey dismissed suggestions that Brexit had weakened the UK's relationship with European allies, despite it being an obstacle to accessing the fund. "The one thing that stood all the way through the height of Brexit, when it was at its most toxic, was still the intelligence sharing and the operational willingness to cooperate between the UK and Europe. Never, ever, ever did Brexit politics infringe on that," Heappey said.
Billström echoed the need for rebuilding trust, stating that UK access could have "other beneficial effects as well — rebuilding trust, rebuilding confidence in one another." He concluded: "Again, coming back to the UK, the UK, I think, could be very beneficial for the European Union to gain from it, and we could gain from that."
