Sir Keir Starmer has been warned by European diplomats that he needs to make major concessions to the EU or risk seeing his Brexit reset fail.

Brussels is preparing to name a high price if the Prime Minister wants to get his desired deals on security and trade.

EU negotiating documents leaked over the weekend showed that Brussels is preparing to drive a hard bargain, demanding a new fishing deal as a precondition to reset negotiations even beginning.

The document also shows the EU wants to make the UK adopt the bloc’s laws to get a veterinary agreement – a key plank of Starmer’s plan – and easier youth migration between the two sides.

European diplomatic sources warned that most of the EU is happy with the current status quo and so Starmer faces difficult negotiations ahead.

One diplomat told The i Paper there was exasperation in some European capitals that the UK is making demands but has so far dismissed the EU’s own asks, citing the example that Starmer wants easier migration rules for touring artists but has given a cold shoulder to Brussels’ call for a youth mobility scheme for under-30s migration.

They made clear that the UK would have to offer something to the EU to get the reset under way or risk failure.

“Many key countries of the EU are quite happy with how Brexit is going,” the diplomat said.

“So it is on the UK to tell us: what’s the incentive?”

A second European diplomatic source said many EU countries want a youth mobility deal, “as part of an EU-UK reset”, adding: “If you believe this is complicated, wait until fisheries is on the table.”

A report by the presidency of the European Council, leaked to several newspapers over the weekend after the body’s president Alberto Costa met Starmer in London on Thursday, set out the stringent demands that the EU is likely to make of the UK.

The most hardline asks are on fishing rights and set up a clash with the UK, as the Government said it would “protect the interests of our fishers”.

The document suggested that Starmer’s reset “is only credible” if he agrees early on to the “maintenance of the status quo” on fishing rights, with a controversial deal signed by Boris Johnson to allow the EU to fish in UK waters – branded a sell-out by Britain’s industry – due to expire in June 2026.

The expiry of the agreement could be used as a major point of leverage in negotiations by the UK, but the EU appears to be trying to get an early deal, warning that: “This is needed for the facilitation of discussions on the other aspects under consideration [in the reset].”

It also reignites the row over the UK’s ban on the fishing of sand eels – designed to protect Britain’s population of puffins which eat the small fish, but hated by some EU countries that catch them in huge quantities – by insisting that Britain takes into account the “socio-economic consequences” on European fishing communities of its policies on managing stocks.

Mike Cohen, of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations (NFFO), said: “A long-term deal giving relatively unrestricted access to UK waters – including territorial waters up to six miles from the shore – is unacceptable. 

“This was an astonishing concession from the Conservative government, with no commensurate benefit to our fishing fleet and must not be repeated now.”

Cohen also warned that the EU’s move on the sand eel ban, over which it has launched formal dispute proceedings, would leave the UK’s fisheries management policy “completely hamstrung” and “undo the little good that has been done for UK fishing since Brexit”.

But he added: “That said, the document has to be seen for what it is: a wish list. 

“All very nice (my kids wrote to Santa this week, too) but not necessarily something they are going to get.”

A UK Government spokeswoman said: “This Government is resetting its relationship with the EU and wants to strengthen cooperation, to make people safer and tackle barriers to trade, to help drive economic growth.

“We have been clear that there will be no return to the customs union, single market or freedom of movement. The UK Government will always work to protect the interests of our fishers.”

It came as the Mail on Sunday reported that Starmer was assembling a team of more than 100 civil servants for negotiations with the EU, to be led by a new chief negotiator within the Cabinet Office.

UK demands versus the EU’s own asks

Veterinary agreement: Labour’s manifesto makes this the centrepiece of its demands on trade, with a deal mooted to reduce border checks on food trade and bring down prices for  consumers in the UK.

EU response: In the leaked European Council paper: the document formalises warnings that the UK will have to follow EU rules and submit to European Court of Justice (ECJ) oversight if Starmer wants a deal.

But it goes further than some had been expecting, making clear that it will not recognise “equivalent” domestic laws to govern the deal, stating that the UK must adopt regulations made in Brussels for it to work, and demanding Britain pays the EU for oversight of the deal. This would risk angering Leave backers, and causing a backlash from the Tories and Reform.

UK-EU security pact: As well as closer co-operation on defence and foreign policy, UK ministers have set out calls for the mooted deal to cover a wide range of areas including energy, climate, and irregular migration.

EU response: Similar demands on so-called “dynamic alignment” with EU rules and payments to Brussels are set out if the UK wants to link its carbon trading scheme with the bloc.

On security, it is revealed that the Government has been pushing for a non-legally binding Security and Defence Partnership, but warns that a wider pact of the kind pushed by Starmer must not give the UK a back door to the European single market, despite Rachel Reeves’ push for British defence firms to be involved in the bloc’s weapons-buying plans.

On the Channel crisis, the document suggests the EU is open to more data-sharing, if the UK is willing to give up more of its own information and pays more towards the European Migrant Smuggling Centre, but rules out a returns agreement to send small boat migrants back to the continent.

Mobility: The UK Government wants the EU to agree to the mutual recognition of professional qualifications to allow British-qualified doctors, lawyers, architects, accountants and others to work more easily in the bloc and vice versa. Labour has also promised to help touring artists work on the continent with less red tape.

EU response: The EU has renamed its much-mooted youth mobility proposal a “youth experience scheme”, but makes clear there is “strong support” among EU member states for a deal to create “new mobility opportunities for young persons between 18 and 30 years for a limited period of time” and to address “key impediments of student mobility”.

In recognition of the pressure Starmer is facing on migration, the document however does not call for an early deal or make this a condition of other agreements, reflecting The i Paper’s reporting that the EU recognises the immediate political sensitivities on the issue in the UK.

Starmer and other ministers have repeatedly said the UK has “no plans” for a youth mobility deal, without ruling it out.

The new year will usher in the bitcoin-friendly administration of President-elect Donald Trump and an expanding lobbying effort in statehouses that, together, could push states to become more open to crypto and for public pension funds and treasuries to buy into it.

Proponents of the uniquely volatile commodity argue it is a valuable hedge against inflation, similar to gold.

Many bitcoin enthusiasts and investors are quick to criticize government-backed currencies as prone to devaluation and say increased government buy-in will stabilize bitcoin’s future price swings, give it more legitimacy and further boost an already rising price.

But the risks are significant. Critics say a crypto investment is highly speculative, with so much unknown about projecting its future returns, and warn that investors should be prepared to lose money.

Only a couple public pension funds have invested in cryptocurrency and a new U.S. Government Accountability Office study on 401(k) plan investments in crypto, issued in recent days, warned it has “uniquely high volatility” and that it found no standard approach for projecting the future returns of crypto.

It has already been a landmark year for crypto, with bitcoin hitting $100,000, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approving the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin and crypto enthusiasts being cheered by Trump’s promise to make the United States the “bitcoin superpower” of the world.

More legislation on crypto could be coming

Lawmakers in more states can expect to see bills in 2025 to make them crypto-friendly as analysts say crypto is becoming a powerful lobby, bitcoin miners build new installations and venture capitalists underwrite a growing tech sector that caters to cryptocurrencies.

Meanwhile, a new crypto-friendly federal government under Trump and Congress could consider legislation from Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, to create a federal bitcoin reserve on which states can piggyback.

A bill introduced last month in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives sought to authorize the state’s treasurer and public pension funds to invest in bitcoin. It went nowhere before the legislative session ended, but it caused a stir.

“I had a friend who is a rep down the road text me, ‘Oh my god, I’m getting so many emails and phone calls to my office,’ more than he ever did about any other bill,” said the measure’s sponsor, Republican Mike Cabell.

Cabell — a bitcoin enthusiast who lost his reelection bid — expects his bill to be reintroduced by a colleague. And leaders of bitcoin advocacy group Satoshi Action say they expect bills based on their model bill to be introduced in at least 10 other states next year.

But what about public pension funds?

Keith Brainard, research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, said he doesn’t expect many public pension fund investment professionals, who oversee nearly $6 trillion in assets, to invest in crypto.

Pension fund professionals take risks they deem to be appropriate, but bitcoin investing has a short track record, might only fit into a niche asset class and may not fit the risk-to-reward profile they seek.

“There might be a bit of dabbling in bitcoin,” Brainard said. “But it’s difficult to envision a scenario in which pension funds right now are willing to make a commitment.”

In Louisiana, Treasurer John Fleming helped make the state the first to introduce a system by which people can pay a government agency in cryptocurrencies.

Fleming said he’s not trying to promote cryptocurrency, but rather sees the step as a recognition that government must innovate and be flexible in helping people make financial transactions with the state. He said he would never invest his money, or the state’s, in crypto.

Fleming recalled meeting with a bitcoin lobbyist recently and came away unconvinced that bitcoin makes for a good investment.

“My concern is that at some point it’ll stop growing and then people will want to cash in,” Fleming said. “And when they do, it could tank the value of a bitcoin.”

In Pennsylvania, Treasury Department officials said they have the authority to decide for themselves if cryptocurrencies meet the agency’s investment standards under state law and don’t need new legislation.

Still, a highly volatile asset is ill-suited to the agency’s need for predictability, considering it writes millions of checks a year. The overwhelming majority of the roughly $60 billion it invests at any given time is in short-term, conservative investments designed for an investment period of months, officials there said.

Pension boards, which invest on a 30-year time horizon, may already hold small investments in companies involved in mining, trading and storing cryptocurrencies. But they have been slow to embrace bitcoin.

That could change, said Mark Palmer, managing director and a senior research analyst at The Benchmark Company in New York.

Pension boards got investment tools they like this year when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin and, in October, approved listings of options on those funds, Palmer said.

Many “are likely in the process of getting up to speed on what it means to invest in bitcoin and kicking the tires, so to speak, and that’s a process that typically takes a while at the institutional level,” Palmer said.

Several major asset managers like BlackRock, Invesco and Fidelity have bitcoin ETFs.

Some states already are investing in crypto

In May, the State of Wisconsin Investment Board became the first state to invest when it bought $160 million worth of shares in two ETFs, or about 0.1% of its assets. It later scaled back that investment to $104 million in one ETF, as of Sept. 30. A spokesperson declined to discuss it.

Michigan’s state investment board later reported about $18 million in bitcoin ETF purchases while a candidate for New Jersey governor, Steven Fulop, said that if elected he would push the state’s pension fund to invest in crypto.

Fulop, the Democratic mayor of Jersey City, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, has been preparing for months to buy bitcoin ETF shares for up to 2% of the city’s $250 million employee pension fund.

“We were ahead of the curve,” Fulop said. “And I think that’s what you’re eventually going to see is this is widely accepted, with regard to exposure in all pension funds, some sort of exposure.”

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