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Sir Keir Starmer and Friedrich Merz will this week unveil a deal to make it easier for German children to travel on school trips to Britain alongside a “milestone” treaty to rebuild post-Brexit ties between the UK and Germany.
Merz’s visit to the UK on Thursday — his first as chancellor — follows President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to London last week, as Starmer seeks to strengthen ties with Berlin, Paris and Brussels.
The UK-Germany treaty will cover travel, defence co-operation, trade and irregular migration. “The prime minister is putting in the hard yards to rebuild our international relationships, to the benefit of working people at home,” said a Downing Street official.
The collapse of exchanges between Germany and Britain after Brexit is a source of concern in Berlin: trips to the UK are seen as important to build cultural ties and help German students learn English.
Under a deal to be announced this week in parallel to the treaty, teachers will be able to bring pupils on visits without obtaining visas, according to three people familiar with the plan — a step that officials hope will reverse an 80 per cent drop in German school trips to the UK since Brexit.
While German nationals can enter the UK without a visa, there are many children in German schools who have passports from Turkey, Syria, Ukraine and other non-EU nations who do not benefit from that exemption, making it more difficult to organise school trips.
Under a new scheme similar to a UK-France arrangement, trip organisers in Germany will instead submit a list of names to UK authorities so that all their pupils can enter the country without a visa.
In exchange, Germany has agreed to toughen its laws on people smuggling to make it easier to prosecute members of gangs helping funnel migrants towards the UK.
A Home Office spokesperson declined to comment on the deal.
A German government spokesman described it as “an important milestone” in German-British relations, adding that it would also include provisions to boost economic co-operation and foster closer contacts between citizens.
The agreements will be announced as the UK and Germany sign a treaty that aims to bind the two nations closer on foreign policy and defence. The move comes as Europe undergoes a huge rearmament drive following pressure from US President Donald Trump for the continent to do more to defend itself.
The treaty, which will be presented to the German cabinet this week, contains a clause committing each country to assist the other in the event of an attack. Officials from both countries were eager to stress that it should not be seen as casting doubt on, or superseding, Nato’s Article 5.
But one person familiar with the text said it was intended as a “signal” to Moscow and Washington that Europe was taking its own security seriously.
German and British officials see the treaty as strengthening a “triangle” represented by Berlin, Paris and London.
The UK and Germany each have their own bilateral co-operation treaty with France but, 80 years on from the end of the second world war, it will be the first such agreement between Berlin and London.
