Saturday | 5 October 2024 | Reg No- 06
বাংলা
   
Saturday | 5 October 2024 | Epaper
BREAKING: ● Sailor dies after oil tanker catches fire in Ctg      ● Ex-president Badruddoza Chowdhury passes away      ● Killing during students' movement: 9 bodies to be exhumed in Sylhet      ● Malaysian prime minister leaves Dhaka for home      ● CA seeks Malaysian support for Bangladesh to be ASEAN dialogue partner      ● Malaysian PM assures of attention to 18,000 Bangladesh workers       ● Bid to kill Khaleda Zia: Sheikh Hasina among 113 sued      

Macron hosts Starmer as UK seeks to reset Europe ties 

Published : Friday, 30 August, 2024 at 12:00 AM  Count : 73
PARIS, Aug 29: UK premier Keir Starmer was welcomed warmly Thursday in Paris by French leader Emmanuel Macron, as the new centre-left British government seeks to relaunch post-Brexit ties with Europe.

Paris is the second leg of Starmer's trip to key EU capitals, after the prime minister visited Berlin and announced treaty talks alongside Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Macron strode out to meet Starmer for a demonstrative hug, slapping the recently-elected leader's back and shaking his hand.

French presidents usually wait beside uniformed Republican Guards standing rigidly to attention at the top of the steps in the presidential palace's courtyard when welcoming visitors.

The pair have plenty to discuss.

Like Germany, France is a key security partner for Britain -- Paris and London hold permanent seats on the UN Security Council and are Western Europe's only nuclear-armed powers.

The two countries share strong support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian invasion since 2022.
More fraught is the issue of migrants crossing the Channel to the UK on boats, which the two countries' security forces have cooperated for years to try to contain.

The issue was the first aim singled out by Starmer in a statement released ahead of the France visit, alongside stoking economic growth.

Migrant arrivals in Britain reached a record high in the first six months of the year, according to London, adding 18 percent year-on-year to reach 13,500 people.

Since the beginning of the year, 25 people have died in often dangerously-overcrowded craft, twice as many as in the whole of 2023.

Reaching a new level of cooperation with the EU as a whole may be more elusive than the treaty Starmer hopes to strike with Germany by year's end.

He has made a classic choice of interlocutors in Scholz and Macron as the heads of the EU's traditional Franco-German power couple.

But both are in a weakened state that may limit their influence on cross-Channel dealmaking.

Scholz heads a shaky three-party coalition set for a drubbing in three regional elections next month and unlikely to survive next year's national ballot.

Macron is struggling to come up with a candidate for prime minister after a July snap election produced a hopelessly hung parliament -- a stark contrast to Starmer's unassailable majority.     —AFP



LATEST NEWS
MOST READ
Also read
Taliban’s battle with IS opens door to foreign cooperation 
India asks top court to heed marital rape leniency 
India security forces kill 23 Maoist rebels in firefight 
Indonesia hosts international meeting on Myanmar with UN, junta rivals
US election feels reverberations of Middle East conflict
Sustaining reforms critical for Sri Lanka: IMF 
WHO launches plan to rein in 'alarming' dengue spread 
US election like no other enters nail-biting final month
Editor : Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury
Published by the Editor on behalf of the Observer Ltd. from Globe Printers, 24/A, New Eskaton Road, Ramna, Dhaka.
Editorial, News and Commercial Offices : Aziz Bhaban (2nd floor), 93, Motijheel C/A, Dhaka-1000.
Phone: PABX- 41053001-06; Online: 41053014; Advertisement: 41053012.
E-mail: info©dailyobserverbd.com, news©dailyobserverbd.com, advertisement©dailyobserverbd.com, For Online Edition: mailobserverbd©gmail.com
🔝