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The European Commission on Thursday described the United Kingdom as a "close and valued partner" of the European Union, as officials said technical negotiations were advancing on three fronts: food safety standards, emissions trading and youth mobility.
The remarks came during a daily press briefing in Brussels, where Commission spokespeople addressed the state of EU-UK relations and the prospect of a future summit between the two sides.
Balazs Ujvari, a spokesperson for the European Commission, said the EU was working to implement commitments made at the most recent EU-UK summit. He said discussions were centered on sanitary and phytosanitary standards, the linking of the EU's and UK's emissions trading systems, and youth mobility arrangements between the two sides.
"The UK is a close and valued partner of the European Union," Ujvari said, adding that it was up to the UK government to determine how it wants to shape the relationship going forward. He said the Commission "remains open to engaging on the options it may put forward."
Asked whether the UK could eventually rejoin the EU, Paula Pinho, the Commission's chief spokesperson, declined to speculate, saying she had "no crystal ball on this side of the table." Pinho said the bloc was focused on pursuing "good opportunities" with the UK while acknowledging that "the devil lies in the details."
She said engagement with UK counterparts was ongoing and that a summit was expected "soon," after which further steps would be determined.
The Commission's comments followed remarks a day earlier by British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who told the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool that he hoped to see Britain rejoin the EU within his lifetime, while cautioning that rejoining was not the option he believed should be pursued immediately.
Burnham said Britain could not chart "the clear path we need into the rest of this century" without resolving its long-term relationship with the EU, which he called "still our largest market." He said he intended to use the upcoming summit to lay out the range of options available to the UK.
"And there are different options, and I will see if we can find consensus around one, which will give us clarity about our position and the future of the continent that we live in," Burnham said.
The UK left the EU in 2020, four years after a 2016 referendum in which about 52% of voters backed leaving the bloc.
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