After its failure to strike a deal to tap into the EU’s defence for loan scheme, the UK is now on a charm offensive to secure “Made in Europe” access for its industry.
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UK Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle is in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday to press the case for UK involvement in the European preference scheme the Commission is drafting, as speculation circulates that it will be limited to EU countries only.
“We have a shared challenge on the continent of Europe about economic security,” Kyle told journalists after meeting Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera, adding that “the continent of Europe should come together” to build “resilience” at a time of increasing worldwide economic tensions.
The UK fears Brussels’ push to favour “Made in Europe” products will shut London out of EU public procurement and state aid, escalating post-Brexit trade tensions.
London argues that the EU and UK economies are too deeply intertwined to withstand a strict EU-only European Preference.
The EU’s “Made in Europe” strategy is set to feature in the long-delayed Industrial Accelerator Act, held up for months by divisions among member states and within the European Commission. Baltic and Nordic countries have warned that the plan could curb innovation and restrict access to non-EU technologies, joining Germany in calling for a broad definition of “Made in Europe” that includes the bloc’s “trusted” trade partners.
France, by contrast, wants to limit eligibility to members of the European Economic Area – including Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland – as well as countries with reciprocal procurement agreements with the EU.
Limits of participation
London has previously sought to secure preferential access to the EU’s €150-billion Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defence loan scheme – so far, to no avail.
That programme also contains a European preference, with member states required to ensure that at least two-thirds of the weapon systems they buy using loaned EU money are manufactured in an EU or EEA/EFTA country or Ukraine. Third-country participation is capped at 35%.
Talks to bring the UK to the same level as a member state collapsed last November when they failed to find a compromise over how much London would have to contribute financially.
Euronews understands that those talks fell apart over a major gap between the two sides: whereas the final offer on the table from the EU was around €2 billion, the UK estimated it ought to contribute just over €100 million.
But the UK also wants to participate in the EU’s €90 billion loan to Ukraine, two-thirds of which is earmarked for military assistance.
Starmer said last month that “whether it’s SAFE or other initiatives, it makes good sense for Europe in the widest sense of the word – which is the EU plus other European countries – to work more closely together.”
But the British premier is walking a difficult political tightrope. His Labour party is consistently polling several points behind the right-wing populist Reform UK, led by arch-Brexiteer Nigel Farage.
Yet, a recent YouGov poll showed that a majority of British people (58%) now believe that it was wrong for the UK to leave the EU, with 54% supporting rejoining the bloc. An even bigger majority – 62% – support having a closer relationship without rejoining the EU, the Single Market, or the Customs Union.
Brussels, however, has always been clear that the UK cannot pick and choose privileged access to the Single Market without accepting the EU’s “four freedoms”: the full freedom of movement of goods, services, capital and people – the latter of which would feed into Farage’s anti-immigration platform.
The ancient settlement of Chiavenna, in Lombardy, near Italy’s border with Switzerland, was once well known among travellers. “Lovely Chiavenna … mountain peaks, huge boulders, with rippling miniature torrents and lovely young flowers … and grassy heights with rich Spanish chestnuts,” wrote George Eliot in 1860.
Eliot wasn’t the only writer to rhapsodise about this charming town. Edith Wharton described it as “fantastically picturesque … an exuberance of rococo”. For Mary Shelley it was “paradise … glowing in rich and sunny vegetation”, while Goethe described it as “like a dream”.
For those pioneering travellers, gentle, sunlit Chiavenna marked their arrival in Italy, having crossed the Splügen Pass, one of the earliest transalpine routes connecting northern Europe to the south. Today, few tourists bother with Chiavenna, heading instead to the better-known Como that lies 60 miles (100km) to the south. They are missing a treat.
Intrigued by the praise once heaped upon this mysterious town, with a picture-perfect location at the foot of the snow-flecked Alps, I decided to spend a week here with my husband. Surrounded by thick chestnut woods and bisected by the crystal-clear River Mera, Valchiavenna (the town’s valley) holds numerous surprises too, from the area’s crotti (natural caves), to a B&B in the ornate villa once inhabited by the great 18th-century painter Angelica Kauffman. It also has dozens of magnificent hiking and cycling trails through a spectacular landscape of waterfalls, glacially sculpted rocks, mossy woodlands, ancient mule tracks and abandoned villages. With barely a tourist in sight.
I travelled from Zurich, taking a train to St Moritz, then a bus over the spectacular Maloja Pass, down 20 vertiginous hairpin bends (known as tornanti) carved from the rock face of the Alps, with sweeping views – lakes, peaks, forests – in all directions. This €20 one-hour bus ride also stops off at the Swiss village of Stampa (birthplace of the artist Alberto Giacometti and home of the Museo Ciäsa Granda, which is dedicated to him), as well as Sils Maria village, home of the Nietzsche-Haus, where Nietzsche spent seven formative summers in the late 19th century, and now a museum. Meanwhile, my husband travelled to Chiavenna by train from Milan, a journey that skirted the scenic shores of numerous lakes, including Lake Como.
The remote Rifugio Uschione. Photograph: Paolo Valentini
Our first day was spent hiking 6 miles upriver along the beautiful Via Bregaglia, a 24-mile hiking trail running from Soglio in Switzerland to Chiavenna, to reach one of the region’s best-known restaurants, the family-run, Michelin-starred Lanterna Verde. After feasting on trout caught minutes before from their own lake, we took the bus back to explore Chiavenna’s old centre, which dates from the 15th century (the medieval town was destroyed by fire). Described by an Italian friend as “like Verona but without the amphitheatre, crowds and chain stores”, the network of cobbled alleys containing ornate frescoed buildings and elaborate fountains is testament to its past as a wealthy trading town.
Chiavenna is home to dozens of crotti, natural cellars embedded in the rocky flanks of the surrounding mountains. Before the advent of refrigeration, the crotti were used for storing wine, cheese and cured meats, and often as places to socialise. Today several operate as restaurants and bars: at Crotto Ubiali and Crotto Ombra, we tucked into two of the town’s signature dishes: sciatt – melt-in-the-mouth buckwheat fritters stuffed with cheese – and gnocchi alla chiavennasca – bread-based dumplings served with melted butter and crispy fried sage. At Crotto Belvedere, we sipped local wine – try Opera, a delicious white from nearby vineyards, that arrives in a bottle labelled with the work of a local artist.
On our second day we explored the Parco delle Marmitte dei Giganti (“giants’ cauldrons”), which slopes up from the town’s eastern edge – a mass of mineral-rich green stone (pietre verdi) natural craters, caused by glacial erosion over thousands of years. From here, hiking trails fan out, tantalisingly, in all directions. We took the 50-minute path to Uschione, an empty, roadless village of stone houses, a church and cemetery, perched high above the valley and wreathed in soft wisps of cloud. Four hundred people once lived here, but today the only inhabitants are long‑eared sheep and Mendi who runs the Rifugio Uschione (doubles from €160), a rustic yet stylish priest’s house where we spent an utterly silent night of perfect sleep. The next morning we took a mossy path upwards to explore abandoned forest crotti, before turning northwards to bask in panoramic views across the valley and up towards the soaring Rhaetian Alps.
Palazzo Vertemate Franchi in Piuro is the only building that survived a landslide in 1618. Photograph: AGF/Alamy
Back in Chiavenna, we headed to the Palazzo Salis B&B, once home to Angelica Kauffman. Here, a lavish frescoed room, complete with antique furniture, painted ceiling, chequered marble floor and breakfast on the terrace costs from €130. After stopping for cups of cappuccino and cioccolata calda (melted dark chocolate with a splash of thick cream) in Sierra Nevada, the town’s cutest roastery, we walked a mile north to Piuro for a tour of the most eye‑popping renaissance villa: Palazzo Vertemate Franchi. The sole surviving building from a 1618 landslide that destroyed the entire village and killed more than 1,000 inhabitants, the palazzo (advance booking and guided tours only) boasts exquisite marquetry, fantastical frescoes and elaborately carved panelling.
Giddy from all these unexpected delights, we strolled a further mile to the dramatic Acquafraggia waterfalls. This double waterfall tumbles 1,300 metres in a series of cascades, and was described by Leonardo da Vinci as “making a beautiful sound and a marvellous spectacle”. With our cheeks gently misted, we climbed the ancient mule path (2,867 stone steps) up to the abandoned village of Savogno, where old stone houses cling precipitously to the mountainside.
A day later, we drove up the 51 tightly twisting, hairpin bends to explore the Splügen Pass. This 40-minute journey climbs 1,780 metres and propelled us into an utterly different, much chillier landscape. We spent a contented night at the legendary coaching inn Albergo della Posta, (doubles from €130) in the tiny hamlet of Montespluga. Little has changed here in 75 years – the 10 bedrooms are cosily panelled in pine, and retain their original furnace stoves.
Leonardo da Vinci was among admirers of the Acquafraggia waterfall. Photograph: Aerial Vision/Alamy
With Shelley’s words about the pass in our heads – “naked and sublime … dim mists, chilling blasts and driving snow” – we walked a three-hour circular path to the Lago di Andossi, revelling in the landscape’s bleak austerity, with its eerily turquoise lakes, luminously green lichen and treeless, craggy peaks. This route also forms the beginning of the 20-mile Valchiavenna cycle path, which took third place in the Italian Green Way Cycle Road awards of 2022. Bike hire is available from Adam’s Bike Tours, and we vowed to return one day to cycle the route.
And then it was back to Chiavenna to investigate the Saturday market, sample its three gelaterias, explore the towering Parco Paradiso (a terraced botanical garden built on the site of the original castle), and to amble around the cloistered church of San Lorenzo, with its gloriously carved 12th-century font. We finished at Chiavenna’s high-security Museo del Tesoro or “treasure museum”, home to the extraordinary La Pace – a jaw-dropping, 11th-century bible cover with the finest goldsmithing and enamelling imaginable, encrusted with emeralds, rubies and pearls. It is yet another reminder of the important role Chiavenna once played in Europe’s history.
We ended our trip by pigging out on the locally inspired tasting menu – it was our wedding anniversary – at the family-run Villa Giade (which also has sleekly modern, reasonably priced bedrooms with the best views in town). Over glasses of wine from the local Nebbiolo grape, we pondered Chiavenna’s many hidden charms, before agreeing that this could be the most quietly romantic town we had ever visited.
THE WORLD’S most welcoming cities have been revealed and a UK destination with famous Turkish Baths and vibrant gardens has been named amongst them.
Though technically not a city, Harrogate in North Yorkshire, sits on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
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Harrogate in North Yorkshire has been named among the most welcoming cities in the worldCredit: AlamyIt was the only destination in the UK to feature on the list created by Booking.comCredit: Alamy
And according to Booking.com, Harrogate is one of the most welcoming destinations in the world and the only spot in the UK to feature on the list.
Booking.com commented: “Harrogate is an elegant English spa town full of historic charm.
“Quaint boulevards and ornate Victorian façades frame a town filled with modern and contemporary cafés, indie shops and scenic garden paths perfect for leisurely strolls.”
One top spot mentioned by Booking.com is Valley Gardens, formed of 17 acres of English Heritage Grade II listed parkland.
One recent visitor said: “What an absolute gem of a park.
“Very picturesque, serene and pleasant walk through with a beautiful Victoriana style cafe and beautiful views across the park.
“I could spend a day there with a book, flask with hot tea and snacks and relax. It has a very calming aura.”
Harrogate is also well-known for its Turkish Baths – a unique spa experience that dates back to 1897.
The Harrogate Turkish Baths are one of the best-preserved Victorian Baths in the UK and were once used as a luxury and therapeutic experience by wealthy Victorians.
The spa still operates today and has a frigidarium, steam room, different heat rooms and a plunge pool.
Sessions usually cost £37 per person for an hour and a half to two hours access.
And if you find the history of the spa town interesting, then head to the Royal Pump Room Museum, where you will find the strongest sulphur wells in Europe.
You will also learn about Harrogate’s connection to Russian royalty.
The spa town is famous for its Turkish Baths, which are still open todayCredit: PA
It costs just £4.20 per adult and £2.40 per child to visit.
Here visitors will find over 50 independent shops including cosy cafes.
Across the cobbled streets in the Montpellier Quarter, there are gardens, ornate lamp posts and lots of flowers.
One visitor said: “This is a rabbit warren of individual antiques and curios shops under one roof.
“There is art, jewellery, ornaments – too much to mention but all very interesting and great for provoking memories of things our grandparents had in their time!”
If you are looking for somewhere to stay in the town, then you could head to The Old Swan Hotel – which is the hotel where Agatha Christie was discovered after she had been missing for 11 days in 1926.
The ivy-covered hotel is just a three-minute walk from the Royal Pump Room Museum and features suites with four-poster beds.
There is also the Montpellier Quarter, which is full of independent shopsCredit: Alamy
Rooms cost from around £68 per night.
For a bite to eat, definitely check out Bettys Café Tea Rooms – a famous spot for afternoon tea and coffee.
You can opt for the Grande Breakfast which includes muesli, pain au chocolat, toasted fruit loaf, tea or coffee and a choice of either poached egg and avocado, scrambled eggs and Yorkshire smoked salmon or poached egg and dry-cured bacon for £22.50 per person.
Booking.com added: “Captivating with its harmonious mix of culture and greenery, Harrogate invites travelers to unwind while discovering the quieter corner of northern England.”
Other cities named among the most welcoming in the world include Montepulciano in Italy.
This hilltop town in Tuscany, Italy, is famous for its red wine.
Due to being on the hilltop, the town has stunning panoramic views.
Other destinations named as welcoming cities include Fredericksburg, Texas, United States and Klaipėda, Lithuania.
The world’s most welcoming cities for 2026, according to Booking.com
