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About £15 billion of British automotive exports are sold into European markets each year, and Healey, attending his first EU finance ministers meeting since he was made chancellor in July, will tell the bloc not to erect new barriers.
Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey delivers a speech at the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry, Britain, September 7, 2026. Betty Laura Zapata/Pool via REUTERS
LONDON, Sept 17 (Reuters) – British finance minister John Healey will urge his counterparts in the European Union not to exclude Britain from the bloc’s “Made in Europe” industrial policy at a meeting in Dublin later, as he presses for deeper economic and security ties.
Healey wants closer partnerships with the EU in the tech, defence and manufacturing sectors, the treasury said, and is hoping to secure better access to European markets, 10 years after Britain voted to leave the bloc.Britain’s Labour government has been trying to improve trading ties with the EU since it was elected 2024 but has so far struggled, failing, for example, to find a way to join the EU’s SAFE defence fund last year.
The EU’s Made in Europe policy could be the latest stumbling block, as Healey presses for carve-outs for Britain.
He will tell EU partners to “learn the lessons” from SAFE, which fell through after London refused to pay the financial contribution to join.
The Made in Europe policy is aimed at curbing reliance on Chinese components by prioritising European-made goods over those from outside the bloc, a worry for British auto-industry suppliers who feed into EU supply chains.
According to the Financial Times, at the meeting, he will also indicate that Britain could agree a “reset” deal with the EU, provided Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government could show that it “benefits people back home”.
A formal summit between Britain and the EU has been postponed from July after Britain’s former Prime Minister Keir Starmer resigned in June.
Reporting by Sarah Young and William Schomberg in London, Mrinmay Dey in Mexico City; Editing by Chris Reese
