LONDON (AP) — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz signed a landmark treaty on Thursday that pledges to tighten defense ties and boost law-enforcement cooperation against criminal people-smuggling gangs using the English
Channel.
“This is a historic day for German-British relations,” said Merz, making his first official visit to Britain since taking office in May. “We want to work together more closely, particularly after the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. It is overdue for us to conclude such a treaty with each other.”
Starmer said the agreement — signed at London’s V&A Museum, which is named after Queen Victoria and her German husband, Prince Albert — was a “statement of intent, a statement of our ambition to work ever more closely together."
Starmer has made it a priority of his center-left Labour Party to curb the gangs behind cross-Channel people smuggling. About 37,000 people were detected crossing the English Channel from France in small boats in 2024, and more than 20,000 people made the crossing in the first six months of 2025. Dozens have died trying to make the crossing.
Berlin agreed last year to make facilitating the smuggling of migrants to the U.K. a criminal offence, a move that will give law enforcement more powers to investigate the supply and storage of small boats to be used for the crossings. Merz is expected to commit to adopting the law change by the end of the year.
“Chancellor Merz’s commitment to make necessary changes to German law to disrupt the supply lines of the dangerous vessels which carry illegal migrants across the Channel is hugely welcome,” Starmer said.
The treaty builds on a defense pact the U.K. and Germany, two of the biggest European supporters of Ukraine, signed last year pledging closer co-operation against a growing threat from Russia. It includes a promise to come to one another’s aid in the event of an attack — though as NATO members, they are already committed to that.
The leaders' talks over lunch at 10 Downing St. included ways to boost European support for Ukraine, following U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a plan to bolster Kyiv’s stockpile by selling American weapons to NATO allies who would in turn send arms to Kyiv.
They announced that German defense startup Stark, which makes drones for Ukraine, will open a factory in England. They are also expected to agree to jointly produce defense exports such as Boxer armored vehicles and Typhoon jets, and to develop a deep precision strike missile in the next decade.
Starmer has worked to improve relations with Britain’s neighbors, strained by the U.K.’s acrimonious departure from the European Union in 2020. He has sought to rebuild ties strained by years of ill-tempered wrangling over Brexit terms, an worked to reduce trade barriers and to strengthen defense cooperation.
But Starmer has ruled out rejoining the 27-nation bloc’s single market or customs union, and has been cool to the idea of a youth mobility agreement with the EU.
The two countries agreed on a more limited arrangement that will make it easier for schoolchildren to go on exchange trips.
“I am glad we were able to reach an agreement so that schoolchildren and students can come to Britain more easily in the future, and the other way round can come to Germany more easily, so that the young generation in particular has an opportunity to get to know both countries better,” Merz said.
___
Moulson reported from Berlin.
