Call to urgently revive Theresa May’s plan for EU-wide defence treaty

Leader of centrist Renew group in EU parliament says defence must be main priority over next five years

The former UK prime minister Theresa May’s proposal for an EU-wide defence treaty needs to be revisited urgently, the leader of Emmanuel Macron’s political group in Brussels has said, as the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, said his party would seek such a deal in government.

If climate breakdown was top of Ursula von der Leyen’s last mandate as European Commission president, defence must now be the number one priority for the next five years of EU policymaking, said Valérie Hayer, the recently selected head of the Renew group, the third biggest voting bloc in the European parliament.