Turning Anglo-German Alignment into Impact Means Building Security Capability, Scaling Up Energy Supply and Smoothing EU–UK Rules

Anglo-German ties have shifted from post-Brexit fatigue to more deliberate strategic cooperation. Security coordination is tightening under new agreements, while energy initiatives — notably in the North Sea — offer a second anchor. Incentives are strong: Germany draws on the UK’s operational strengths and energy potential, and the UK on Germany’s industrial scale, investment capacity and EU anchoring. But real impact hinges on three conditions: turning alignment into capability delivery, accelerating the energy system build-out Europe needs and easing the EU–UK frictions that still constrain cooperation.

Renewed contact signals a quiet strategic rebuild

President Steinmeier’s first state visit to the UK comes amid a noticeable warming of Anglo-German relations, reflected in the pace of ministerial contact. Prime Minister Starmer, Defence Secretary Healey and Foreign Secretary Cooper were all in Berlin only last month, across formats such as the E3, the Group of Five and a new Friendship and Bilateral Cooperation Treaty.

Across Europe, real-time diplomacy has shifted to flexible groupings such as the E3, Weimar Plus and the Ukraine coalitions — arenas where the UK and Germany increasingly find themselves aligned. What was once a drifting post-Brexit relationship is evolving into a more purposeful partnership, but its long-term strength will depend on what follows.

As Europe confronts mounting security demands, the value of this alignment will turn on whether it can contribute to usable defence capability, expand Europe’s energy-industrial build-out and ease EU–UK frictions. Meeting those tests will begin with what London and Berlin can sustain at home.

Constrained at home, both governments look outward

Pressures in both capitals are strikingly similar, even if fiscal space differs.

Both are attempting deep shifts in their economic models. Germany is refitting its industrial engine for a world defined by innovation, climate constraints and geopolitical competition. The UK is trying to complement its strong services base by rebuilding industrial capacity and addressing decades of weak investment and productivity.

Both face electorates unsettled by economic transition and exposed to rising cost-of-living pressures. Meanwhile, significant pressure from nationalist right-wing populism means both governments have limited political headroom.

The key difference is fiscal: Germany can marshal larger public investment, the UK cannot. Yet both are trying to convert domestic adjustment into external credibility at a moment when Europe faces simultaneous crises of security and competitiveness.

Against this backdrop, defence cooperation — less contested domestically and more shielded from day-to-day politics — emerges as the most practical anchor of bilateral momentum, with energy and economic resilience forming the next frontier.

Underneath this convergence lie structural incentives — Germany benefits from the UK’s expeditionary posture and complex-weapons expertise, while the UK gains from Germany’s industrial depth and central role in shaping EU rulemaking.

As postures shift in Berlin, new space opens in London

The German Zeitenwende of 2022 signalled intent but struggled to translate ambition into sustained capability. London saw few entry points, and Germany’s caution created an asymmetry with the UK’s earlier Ukraine lead and strategic permissiveness.

Almost four years on, British officials increasingly see Germany as a prospective strategic anchor for Europe, a more serious defence actor and a potential industrial powerhouse. The 2024 Trinity House Agreement on Defence gave this posture a practical foundation: a mechanism for joint capability development, procurement coordination and industrial integration.

The broader Kensington Treaty builds on this. Beyond restating mutual assistance commitments – not insignificant in a time of unreliable Western allies –  it emphasises European capacity building, industrial support and interoperability. This creates routines that reduce previous ambiguity about Germany’s strategic trajectory.

Political alignment is emerging but capability delivery remains unproven

Political alignment alone does not build deterrence. It is capabilities that matter — and Europe still produces too little, too slowly and too expensively. Cross-border procurement remains the exception, underscoring how far Europe must go to convert political ambition into usable force.

Seen through a capability lens, the complementarities are clear. Germany brings industrial scale and financial weight, while the UK contributes technological depth, operational experience and greater strategic permissiveness. These strengths map directly onto some of Europe’s most acute gaps, giving the bilateral axis potential leverage if it can translate alignment into delivery.

Against this backdrop, the Anglo-German contribution has set clear targets. Trinity identifies “lighthouse projects” led by firms with Anglo-German footprints: German investment in a UK artillery-barrel plant, new Boxer variants and longer-term precision-strike cooperation. Smaller defence-tech firms have expanded into the UK, drawn by more flexible procurement rules. The new Ministerial Group on Equipment and Capability Co-operation (MECC) is widely seen in industry as the most promising mechanism for turning political intent into real procurement decisions. But joint action can still be hard where thinking remains internal, spending national and decisions political.

A more distant horizon would be bridging FCAS, the Franco-German-Spanish next-generation fighter project, and GCAP, the UK-Japan-Italy programme. With FCAS under strain and doubts about sustaining two competing systems, today’s cooperation at least builds habits that could make future convergence possible. The idea remains speculative but illustrates why current alignment matters — and why French strategic and industrial preferences will ultimately shape the ceiling.

These developments still fall short of Europe’s needs but help revive cooperative practices and industrial links that have atrophied for decades. In a slow system, even small steps matter.

Energy cooperation is deepening as industrial opportunities broaden

Beyond defence, the most consequential complement lies in energy. The UK controls one of Europe’s largest offshore-wind and hydrogen resource bases while Germany faces the steepest industrial-decarbonisation challenge. Anchored in their bilateral treaty and the earlier Energy and Climate Partnership, both governments aim to turn the North Sea into a shared renewable-energy hub.

The Kensington Treaty commits both sides to North Sea renewables, hydrogen infrastructure and green industrial cooperation. Under the Energy and Climate Partnership, they are advancing new interconnectors and a hybrid cable-storage project.

Three trajectories are plausible: high coordination (aligned standards, integrated hydrogen and CO₂-storage systems); fragmented standards (regulatory divergence limiting scale); or a security-led push in which energy cooperation accelerates as a hedge against geopolitical shocks. The current path sits between the first two.

But obstacles remain: slow permitting, unaligned hydrogen standards, uncertain CO₂-storage frameworks. Many of these are regulatory rather than political, and will require more sustained coordination given they sit at the EU–UK boundary.

Still, the wider outlook is improving. A survey by the British Chamber of Commerce in Germany highlights renewed optimism at firm level, with opportunities beyond defence and energy emerging in dual-use technology, advanced manufacturing and life sciences. German regions are targeting these sectors, offering a broader horizon if regulatory barriers ease.

As European structures move slowly, bilateral cooperation fills the gaps

UK–German rapprochement is part of a wider trend of functional bilateralism and minilateralism operating alongside EU structures. The EU itself increasingly relies on “mini-deals” with external partners to compensate for unanimity constraints, including in economic security.

Kensington and Trinity fit this ecosystem. They give the UK structured access to Europe’s security core and offer Germany a complementary partner to France, while creating parliamentary-backed and bureaucratic routines — including regular senior official meetings — that persist beyond political mood.

Yet the scope of what bilateralism can achieve increasingly depends on the EU frameworks surrounding it — decisive in energy, still emerging in defence.

On the latter, the EU is only beginning to develop tools that encourage joint procurement, reduce fragmentation and strengthen Europe’s defence-industrial base. Whether these instruments support or constrain UK–German initiatives will depend on how far third-country access is permitted. The breakdown of talks on UK participation in the Strategic Action for Europe (SAFE) underlines the political and financial sensitivities around access, though SAFE itself is not yet decisive for UK–German cooperation or European industry. Its significance would grow only if the EU succeeds in expanding its defence role substantially — a major open question for now.

Energy presents a different picture. Here the EU’s role is already foundational: market design, grid integration and regulatory alignment all fall under Single Market competences. Ongoing EU–UK discussions on future electricity-market access underscore that North Sea cooperation cannot be separated from the wider regulatory frameworks shaped in Brussels.

Together, these developments highlight a structural reality: bilateralism can move where the EU is slow, but it cannot override the boundaries set by EU law. Germany often sees UK involvement as strategically desirable and can help reduce political friction at the EU level. But its instinct for EU solidarity ultimately prevails, meaning that when decisions touch core Single Market or defence-industrial rules, Berlin will side with the bloc’s cohesion even if its strategic leanings point toward London.

Real Momentum Is Emerging but Strategic Breakthroughs Still Out of Reach

Can this bilateral momentum shift Europe’s wider trajectory? Its significance lies less in sweeping fixes than in rebuilding the habits, links and political confidence Europe needs to expand its hard-power and economic capacity at all.

London and Berlin have rebuilt trust, created institutional machinery and found alignment in defence and energy. Their cooperation strengthens Europe where EU processes can be slow: capability generation, industrial scaling, North Sea integration and flexible coalition-building. It complements the Franco-German axis, though the decisive constraints still lie in Paris: France shapes the direction of EU defence-industrial integration and guards access to key markets, setting the limits of any broader convergence.

Measured against Europe’s larger imperatives, progress remains modest. But the direction is sound. The three major European powers are far from aligned, yet they now share more overlapping priorities than in the immediate post-Brexit phase — most visibly on Ukraine and on the need to bolster Europe’s broader capacity to act. This is not a coherent triangular strategy, but it marks a shift away from the divergence of recent years.

Differences endure on migration, economic openness and the future of EU–UK relations (as the ongoing Strategic Partnership negotiations illustrate). Even so, a pattern of partial alignment is emerging, helped by UK–German proximity on security and industrial questions and by France’s readiness to join wider coalitions on issues such as Ukraine, where delivery pressures outweigh institutional preferences.

In a Europe struggling to turn ambition into capability, this movement matters. Whether it can shift outcomes will hinge on three tests: generating usable defence capability, accelerating Europe’s energy-industrial build-out and easing the EU–UK regulatory frictions that still slow cooperation. On these, only results will count.

About the author

Jake Benford is Senior Expert Europe and Geopolitics at the Bertelsmann Stiftung.