On 26-27 October 2016 the European Leadership Network hosted a meeting of the UK-France Leadership Group in the UK Parliament to discsuss the future of bilateral foreign policy, defence and security cooperation following the UK’s vote to leave the European Union.
The group first met in December 2015 at the Assemblée Nationale to discuss the ways in which the UK and France could cooperate to tackle European regional and global security issues. With Brexit now dominating diplomatic discussions across Europe, the delegates to the second UK-France Leadership Group meeting in London devoted much of their time to discussing the way in which the forthcoming negotiations between the UK and the EU27 would impact both bilateral UK-France cooperation and European and Global security.
Delegates from France and the UK also discussed tensions between Russia and Ukraine as well as between Russia and the West more broadly. The global nuclear weapons agenda was also considered as the group discussed ways in which London and Paris could potentially cooperate in terms of nuclear non-proliferation, security and disarmament.
French Participants
1. Hervé Morin, current President of Normandy and leader of the New Center party, former French Minister of Defense
2. Nicole Ameline, Députée, Assemblée Nationale, Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee
3. Philippe Folliot, Assemblée Nationale, Secretary of Defense Committee
4. Senator Yves Pozzo di Borgo, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on European Affairs
5. Ambassador Pierre Morel, serving Chairman of the Trilateral Contact Group’s Working Group on Political Affairs, former French Ambassador to Russia, China and the Conference on Disarmament
6. Paul Quilès, former Defense Minister
7. General (Ret.) Bernard Norlain, former Air Defense Commander and Air Combat Commander of the French Air Force
8. Professor Emmanuel Dupuy, President of IPSE, Professor of Geopolitics, former Political Advisor to the Commander of the Task Force Lafayette in Afghanistan in 2011
9. Jean-Marie Collin, Vice-President, IDN
10. Michel Drain, Associate Researcher, Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI)
British Participants
11. Earl Howe, Minister of State for Defence and Leader of the House of Lords.
12. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, former Secretary of State for Defence and former Secretary General of NATO
13. Dr Julian Lewis, Chair of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee
14. Alistair Burt MP, former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
15. Sir Malcolm Rifkind, former Foreign Secretary and Defence Secretary and former Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee
16. Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank , former Chief of the Defence Staff and Chief of the General Staff
17. Tom McKane, former Director General for Strategy and Director General for Security Policy at the Ministry of Defence (MOD)
18. Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Defence and Security Committee, former Leader of the Liberal Democrats
19. Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, former Ambassador to the EU and to the United States
20. Lord King of Bridgewater, former Secretary of State for Defence
21. Lord Hannay of Chiswick, former Ambassador to the UN and the EU
22. Sir John Stanley, former Minister of State for the Armed Forces and former Chair of the Committees on Arms Export Control
23. Baroness Williams of Crosby, former Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords
24. Edward Lewis-Smith, Ministry of Defence, Policy Desk Officer, France (European Bilateral Relations)
25. Shatabhisha Shetty, Acting Director, European Leadership Network
26. Dr Ian Kearns, Co-founder and Board member, European Leadership Network
27. Lukasz Kulesa, Research Director, European Leadership Network
28. Joseph Dobbs, Research Fellow, European Leadership Network
