Lisa O’Carroll

He's going to be pragmatic.

He will de facto unblock the 90 billion that the EU had agreed in December to give to Ukraine because Orban had completely blocked that last month.

And we don't know what it's going to be like on climate change, on lots of other things in the EU that he may disagree with.

And he's more right-wing than Orban on migration.

He wants to get rid of guest workers.

Yeah, I think that that is a fair way to look at it.

If you think before Davos, which I think was January, the EU were heavily criticised for being weak on Netanyahu, weak on Ukraine, even though it's backing, you know, it's put huge money into Ukraine, but it doesn't have, couldn't produce the arms or the commitment to military funds as quickly as it should have been able to.

And then they folded, apparently, the UK first and then the EU into a tariff deal with the US, which is not good for anybody.

So I think then at Davos, we had Mark Carney, the Canadian premier, talking about the middle countries and how they had to stand together.

And I think that was the first time we saw Europe find its voice and speak out about illiberal democracies, of which Hungary is one.

And I think from a UK point of view, we have seen Starmer certainly find some sort of metal in the past couple of weeks when it comes to backing Trump on Iran, similarly with France, Germany less so.

Well, the bill is a necessary part of the reset that Labour campaigned for in its election manifesto in 2024.

And then there was that EU-UK summit last year in Lancaster House.

And there was a laundry list of things that the EU and the UK were going to try and agree on.

And the main things were, the highlights were Erasmus, the University Exchange Programme.

The Youth Mobility Programme, which has yet to be agreed.

And then a key thing is what they call Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement, which is to do with all the certification and standards of food and farm produce.

So everything from wood and leather to cheese to frozen beef to vegetables, etc.,

So those rules, the SPS rules, came in because of Brexit.

So before, if you're a farmer, if you're a food producer, you could just sell in to the EU with no paperwork, essentially, or very little paperwork, because everybody followed the same rules.