Cyprus and France: Military Alliances
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to improve (a) military and (b) other defence cooperation with (i) Cyprus and (ii) France.
Answered by Al Carns
The UK is committed to deepening our bilateral relationships with both France and the Republic of Cyprus, as outlined in the Strategic Defence Review 2025.
The UK continues to share a strong Defence relationship with the Republic of Cyprus, through which we cooperate on matters of shared interest. Bilateral cooperation involves a range of a range of multi-domain activities through training, capability development, and crisis planning, as well as collaborating on domestic and regional challenges. Recently, this included UK support to Republic of Cyprus firefighters using ground and aerial assets to combat wildfires. This united response helped protect 15 villages that were threatened by the flames.
Lancaster House 2.0 marks a reboot of the UK-France defence and security relationship, building on the 2010 Lancaster House Treaties. The UK has committed to launching the Combined Joint Force (CJF), overhauling the existing Combined Joint Expeditionary Force to refocus it on the Euro-Atlantic and warfighting at scale to deter, placing it on an operational footing for the first time. Lancaster House 2.0 also sets out the deepening of the UK-France nuclear collaboration, with the first Nuclear Steering Group meeting in November, to co-ordinate deeper UK-France collaboration across nuclear policy, capabilities and operations. The UK agreed to embark upon an ‘Entente Industrielle’ with France, to enhance capability and industrial cooperation and progress is being made on key capability projects.
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