Brexit: RUSI outlines pillars of future settlement designed to uphold Europe’s security structures
The EU Referendum result is now opening up a period of uncertainty and intense debate, the outcome of which will shape the UK’s security and prosperity for decades. RUSI asserts that a new model for co-operation with our European neighbours must now be the strategic priority.
“The institutionalisation of co-operation between States – most of all, through NATO and the EU – has played a key role in underpinning the continent’s security since the end of the Second World War,” stated Professor Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director general of Think Tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). “Indeed, it continues to do so, in turn enabling co-operation to meet common challenges and containing the competitive nationalisms that were so damaging to Europe in the past.”
Chalmers continued: “While the case for European co-operation remains as powerful as ever, its institutional form can change over time in response to new challenges and new political realities. The significant challenge that both the UK and its European partners now confront is to agree on how to create such new co-operative frameworks when faced with the reality of an impending UK exit from EU membership. It will not be easy to reach an agreement, but the costs of failure – for both the UK and its European partners – will be high.”