The World Health Organization (WHO) established the Certification Scheme on the Quality of Pharmaceutical Products Moving in International Commerce in 1969. As one of the earliest instruments promoting regulatory reliance, the Scheme was designed to support Member States in ensuring the quality of medicines circulating in the global market. Over the years, it has undergone several amendments to align with evolving regulatory frameworks and global health needs.
This publication presents an overview of the WHO Certification Scheme, detailing its objectives, historical development, and role within the broader regulatory ecosystem. It examines the Scheme’s strengths and limitations, and offers recommendations for its effective use alongside other regulatory tools. The publication also incorporates insights from National Regulatory Authorities across various WHO regions, as well as perspectives from industry representatives, providing a well-rounded view of the Scheme’s implementation and impact.
They have been outplayed for much of this year’s State of Origin series, written off and then almost snuffed out at the end of Perth’s dramatic Game 2. But Queensland are primed for another doubt-them-at-your-peril Maroons miracle in the shield-deciding match on Wednesday at Accor Stadium in Sydney.
While the Blues are settled going into the much-anticipated clash, Queensland coach Billy Slater has made changes by both necessity and conviction. His side may have held on at the death to win the last contest 26-24, but their performance still prompted the former fullback to press the big maroon button: the break-glass-in-emergency, call-up-a-great-for-one-last-time selection shock.
The tradition is part of Origin folklore, a thread tracing through Allan Langer in 2001 all the way back to Artie Beetson at the series’ conception. This time it’s front-rower Josh Papalii, whose impact will be one of the key determinants of the result on Wednesday night.
Papa in the middle
Josh Papalii, with Kurt Capewell, makes his return to the Origin arena this week. Photograph: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images
Slater’s decision to drop starting prop Mo Fotuaika from his squad highlights the coach’s frustration with his forward pack. They were humbled in Game 1 and overrun in the second half of Game 2, and were ultimately lucky to avoid defeat.
Even in that context however, the decision to recall Papalii is a shock. He has played 23 matches for Queensland, but none since 2022, and is now an impact player for the Raiders. The 33-year-old has averaged nine hit-ups and 100 run metres this year for the table-toppers, typically playing about a half’s worth of football each week.
The Blues pack led by Payne Haas and Isaah Yeo is imposing and skilful, but in Max King and Stefano Utoikamanu does include two players yet to fully establish themselves at Origin level.
Slater understands the contribution of “Big Papa” will be both direct and indirect. Tino Fa’asuamaleaui and Pat Carrigan, the Maroons’ go-to enforcers, are yet to impose their will on this year’s series. The veteran’s presence, the coach hopes, will provide a spark.
The Munster effect
The sad news on Sunday about the death of Steve Munster, father of Queensland captain Cameron, will affect the Maroons’ preparations this week, given the five-eighth has left camp to be with family. He is expected back in time to play on Wednesday, but will miss crucial reps with a new-look backline.
Munster was immense in Game 2. Photograph: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
Munster delivered a man-of-the-match display in Game 2 in his first match as captain. Awarding the once-wayward star the “C” was a gamble from Slater that paid off, and the 30-year-old was central to their success and especially their four-try, first-half blitz. After the events of recent days there are justified doubts whether Munster will be at or near his best on Wednesday, if he plays at all.
Yet the experiences shared by the players this week has the potential to galvanise a squad that on paper looks like it needs every bit of help to upset the Blues in a Sydney decider. What if an emotional Munster did help his state eke out an Origin victory in the decider in the midst of one of life’s darker moments?
In that reality, Munster’s status would draw alongside the greats of the Maroons’ era of 2000s and 2010s dominance, and not far off Wally Lewis at the summit of Queensland rugby league.
Rookies v the Goliaths
The Blues boast two of the most devastating players in the game, Stephen Crichton and Latrell Mitchell, and both line up in the centres. Opposite them stand two unheralded underdogs.
20-year-old Robert Toia has acquitted himself well in his first Origin series, and Gehamat Shibasaki, the 27-year-old Broncos journeyman, lines up on the other side of the field making his debut.
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Latrell Mitchell and Robert Toia will go head-to-head again in Sydney. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP
While Toia has not looked out of place at Origin level, the Blues now have 160 minutes of vision to target his tendencies. And as effective as he has been in the NRL this season, there is a reason Shibasaki was on a train-and-trial with the Broncos at the start of the season, having bounced around the lower grades and even Japanese rugby union.
Slater’s decision to roll with this unproven centre pairing – despite having alternatives like Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow and Val Holmes deployed elsewhere in the backline – is more of a gamble than calling on Papalii for one or two valiant shifts in the middle. If it pays off, Queensland’s narrow path to victory remains open.
The impairment of To’o
Brian To’o celebrates a try during Game 2. Photograph: Richard Wainwright/AAP
Blues winger Brian To’o is one of rugby league’s greatest finishers, and already a Penrith and New South Wales all-timer at age 26. But his status as the best winger in the game is rooted in his work at the other end. His ability to procure the tough early metres in each set has been one of the foundations of his teams’ successes, a man-made tailwind behind each set.
So the injury cloud under which he finds himself is a major concern for the Blues. The 26-year-old suffered a knee injury a week ago and although scans cleared the way for him to join the Blues, the inclusion of Bulldogs winger Jacob Kiraz as 18th man is an insurance policy for a possible late withdrawal.
While Kiraz has been electric for Canterbury this season, and offers a similar appetite for metres of his own line, he is without doubt a step down from the universally respected Panther. An absent or impaired To’o can only engender confidence for the Maroons.
The Hammer’s chance
Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow will start at No 1 Photograph: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images
Slater named two fullbacks for last year’s decider: Reece Walsh starting and Kalyn Ponga coming off the bench. A year later, neither wears the Maroons’ No 1 jersey as Ponga’s foot injury and Walsh’s protracted recovery from a knee injury opens the door for Tabuai-Fidow to earn the role of the Maroons’ backfield ace.
The 23-year-old has been in sparkling form for the Dolphins this season, but is known more for his incisive running game and support play and less for his passing and kicking compared to Walsh.
Slater explained Tabuai-Fidow’s selection at No 1, after nine appearances for the Maroons at centre and wing, as the “best fit” for the team. It’s not clear exactly what the coach means, leaving it up to the Hammer to show us on Wednesday.
Fertility rates are declining globally – South Korea’s rate fell to 0.72, the lowest in the world (Kim and Yum 2025) – while large gender inequalities persist in many countries (Berniell et al. 2024). Governments have expanded policies that support working families to address both challenges, but these policies create operational dilemmas for firms: should they temporarily replace the absent employee with a new hire, redistribute their workload among existing workers, or adjust production and reduce the size of the firm? The answer depends on recruitment and training costs firms face when searching for suitable replacements in a labour market with frictions, where temporary worker absences are costly.
The length of the leave is a crucial factor in this debate. Although longer leave can be beneficial for women (Olivetti and Petrongolo 2017), and generous leave can lead to higher fertility (Kim and Yum 2025), there is concern that these policies adversely affect firms. Indeed, there are two papers that find potential negative impacts on firms. Ginja et al. (2022) examine a Swedish reform that retroactively extended parental leave by three months and find that the longer leaves imposed higher wage costs on firms and some indications that sales and value added per worker were negatively impacted. Gallen (2019) studies a Danish reform that unexpectedly extended leave by 22 weeks and reports negative effects on firm survival and coworker retention, with some coworkers experiencing lower earnings when changing jobs and delaying their own fertility decisions.
One concern with this research is that it examines a sudden change to a system that firms could not anticipate. It is thus not clear whether the negative effects on firms manifest because they were surprised by workers suddenly taking longer leave, and if they could handle longer leave if given enough time to plan.
In our recent paper (Brenøe et al. 2025), we use data from Austria to examine how firms respond to births and variations in the length of leave when they have enough time to plan for a change in the system. This provides an ideal setting for analysis for two reasons. First, Austrian mothers take exceptionally long leave compared to other countries – typically between one and two years. If extended leaves impose significant costs on firms, the Austrian context should reveal these effects clearly. Second, Austria implemented major parental leave reforms that substantially altered leave durations, providing a quasi-experimental setting.
Our first key finding concerns how firms adjust their workforce in anticipation of a leave. Figure 1 shows that firms begin increasing new hires approximately two quarters before the birth event. The number of new hires peaks in the quarter immediately before birth, when many expectant mothers begin their maternity protection period. Cumulatively, firms hire approximately 0.89 additional workers for each woman going on leave, achieving nearly complete replacement.
Figure 1 How a birth impacts firms’ hiring
Notes: Figure 1 shows how many new workers are hired by firms if an employee has a child. We estimate this effect with a methodology that compares firms affected by a birth to comparable firms with no birth. We plot the effect separately for hiring of female and male workers.
Importantly, these replacement hires are almost entirely female – only 9% of excess hires during the anticipation period and 17% during the leave period are male. This pattern suggests significant gender segregation within firms in the allocation of workers to specific roles.
The gendered nature of firm responses extends beyond hiring. Figure 2 shows the evolution of the wage bill by gender. The female wage bill in treated firms initially increases during the anticipation period as replacement workers are hired, then drops sharply when the mother goes on leave. In contrast, the male wage bill shows a small but persistent increase. In the medium run, five years after the birth event, the total wage bill returns to levels comparable to control firms, but its composition has shifted toward male workers. This reallocation appears permanent, suggesting that births trigger lasting changes in firms’ gender composition.
Figure 2 How a birth impacts firms’ wage bills
Our second major finding addresses the central policy question: does the duration of leave matter for firms? Figure 3 provides clear evidence. Panel 3(a) confirms that actual leave-taking varied strongly across regimes in the short run – with approximately 40, 60, and 80 days of leave per quarter in the 1-year, 1.5-year, and 2-year regimes, respectively. Yet panels 3(b) and 3(c) show that this variation in leave duration had virtually no impact on firms’ hiring patterns or wage bills.
Figure 3 Are firms differently affected if women are on long leave?
Notes: Figure 3 shows how an employee having a child affects firms depending on how long mothers can remain on parental leave. Panel (a) shows that the Austrian parental leave reforms shifted large shares of mothers from taking 1 year to taking 1.5–2 years of leave. Panels (b) and (c) show how firms’ hiring and wage bills were not significantly different in those three policy situations.
Whether mothers could take one year or two years of leave, firms hired the same number of replacement workers during the anticipation period. The wage bill increased by similar amounts across all regimes during anticipation and returned to baseline levels in the medium run, regardless of how long the actual leave lasted.
We also find no effects on average daily wages or, importantly, on firm survival rates. Even in the most generous regime, where mothers routinely took two-year leaves, firm closure rates remained unaffected through five years after the birth event.
There is one caveat in the Austrian setting, and that is the lack of direct data on sales or value added. However, our wage and closure results broadly correspond to findings from Denmark by Brenøe et al. (2024), who do not find that leaves lead to big impacts on sales in the periods where the leave policy was stable. Ultimately we have to leave these more granular dimensions of impact on firms open for future research.
Implications for policy
Our findings offer several insights for policymakers considering parental leave reforms. First, the contrast between our results and those from Denmark and Sweden highlights the importance of implementation. When the Danish and Swedish reforms were applied retroactively, catching firms unprepared, they generated disruption and costs. In Austria, the changes did not come as a shock, and even though the reforms substantially changed leave durations, we find no negative effects on firms. This suggests that the predictability of leave policies may matter more than their generosity in terms of the maximum available duration.
Second, the finding that leave duration has minimal impact on firms challenges common assumptions in policy debates. We show that variations in maximum leave length between one and two years – a substantial difference by international standards – do not translate into differential costs for firms. Once leaves exceed a certain threshold, further extensions appear to impose little additional burden on employers.
Third, the gendered nature of firm responses reveals both how firms manage leave absences and why gender inequalities may persist despite generous policies. The near-exclusive hiring of female replacements suggests that many workplaces remain highly gender-segregated. Women appear concentrated in easily replaceable roles, which facilitates smooth transitions during leaves but may simultaneously limit career advancement opportunities.
Finally, our evidence that even very long leaves do not threaten firm survival removes a common objection to generous family policies. Concerns that extended parental leave will devastate businesses appear unfounded, at least when policies are predictable and well-established.
As countries seek to address the demographic challenges of low fertility and persistent gender inequality, the Austrian experience suggests that generous parental leave need not come at the expense of firms. However, achieving true gender equality in the labour market requires addressing the underlying patterns of occupational segregation. The ease with which firms replace women on leave may itself be a symptom of the limited roles available to them.
References
Berniell, I, R Fernandez, and S Krutikova (2024), “The state of gender inequality in Latin America”, VoxEU.org, 6 August.
Brenøe, A A, S Canaan, N A Harmon, and H N Royer (2024), “Is parental leave costly for firms and coworkers?”, The Journal of Labor Economics 42(4): 1135–74.
Brenøe, A A, U Krenk, A Steinhauer, and J Zweimüller (2025), “How do firms respond to parental leave absences?”, CEPR Discussion Paper 20140.
Gallen, Y (2019), “The effect of parental leave extensions on firms and coworkers”, working paper.
Ginja, R, A Karimi, and P Xiao (2022), “Employer responses to family leave programs”, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 15(1).
Kim, D, and Y Yum (2025), “The effects of parental leave policy reforms on fertility and gender gaps”, VoxEU.org, 17 March.
Olivetti, C and B Petrongolo (2017), “The economic consequences of family policies”, VoxEU.org, 3 June.
Maya Jama has found herself at the center of a heated dispute with KSI and the Sidemen after making a throwaway remark about their private school backgrounds.
The Love Island host, 30, appeared on the The Chunkz Show podcast with her friend Chunkz (Amin Mohamed), and a casual comment she made spiraled into a tense exchange between her and the YouTube stars.
During the podcast, Maya was asked whether she preferred Beta Squad or Sidemen, the two popular British YouTube collectives. She confirmed that she was closer to Beta Squad, mentioning her friendship with members like Chunkz and Tobi Brown, and saying, “It’s a very clear Beta Squad for me.” Maya went on to explain that while she got along with KSI and Tobi, she didn’t have much of a connection with the rest of the Sidemen, referring to them as having a “private school, different upbringing.”
Chunkz jokingly added, “Not your kind of people,” and Maya responded, “No offence, they smashed it well done from being rich.” Her offhand comment about Sidemen’s private school background and wealth didn’t sit well with the group.
KSI and his Sidemen members quickly addressed the remark on their own podcast. KSI started the discussion by mentioning Maya’s comment, with Ethan Payne particularly vocal in his response. Ethan criticized Maya for assuming things about their backgrounds, sharing personal stories of hardship, including his father’s struggles. KSI, while agreeing with Ethan’s frustration, clarified that only he and Simon Minter had attended private school and explained the hard work his family put in to afford it.
Taking to the TikTok comments, she wrote: ‘”As people who talk on podcasts, you should know more than anyone about context! Why are you rattled.
‘I was asked who I preferred and CLEARLY said I don’t know you, I only mentioned private school because Chunks did earlier and I said ‘congratulations on being rich’ not coming from money’.
Taking aim at Ethan’s swipe at her, she concluded: ‘Mind how you’re talking though Ethan.’
The exchange continues to stir up tension, with both sides standing firm in their views.
(Reuters) -Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management has filed proposals for four new exchange-traded funds that aim to cushion potential losses in its flagship ARK Innovation fund.
These ETFs mark Ark’s entry into the buffer ETF market, where funds use options to limit losses while capping gains. The strategy, already used by companies such as BlackRock, Allianz and Innovator, has gained popularity among investors seeking protection in volatile markets.
The proposed funds – ARK Q1 Defined Innovation ETF, ARK Q2 Defined Innovation ETF, ARK Q3 Defined Innovation ETF and ARK Q4 Defined Innovation ETF – will each run on a rolling 12-month schedule beginning in January, April, July and October, respectively, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week.
FILE PHOTO: Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Invest, speaks during an interview on CNBC on the floor of the NYSE, in New York
Each fund aims to limit a drop in the share price to 50% in the ARK Innovation ETF, while passing on gains only if the ETF rises more than about 5%.
This comes as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war has rattled markets and pushed up volatility, although his policies are expected to benefit the fund’s holdings.
ARK’s biggest holdings include EV-maker Tesla, crypto exchange Coinbase and trading platform Robinhood, according to LSEG data.
The fund is up about 24% since the start of the year, compared with an about 6% rise in the S&P 500 index.
(Reporting by Utkarsh Shetti and Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
The melting of glaciers and ice caps by the climate crisis could unleash a barrage of explosive volcanic eruptions, a study suggests.
The loss of ice releases the pressure on underground magma chambers and makes eruptions more likely. This process has been seen in Iceland, an unusual island that sits on a mid-ocean tectonic plate boundary. But the research in Chile is one of the first studies to show a surge in volcanism on a continent in the past, after the last ice age ended.
Global heating caused by the burning of fossil fuels is now melting ice caps and glaciers across the world. The biggest risk of a resurgence of volcanic eruptions is in west Antarctica, the researchers said, where at least 100 volcanoes lie under the thick ice. This ice is very likely to be lost in the coming decades and centuries as the world warms.
Volcanic eruptions can cool the planet temporarily by shooting sunlight-reflecting particles into the atmosphere. However, sustained eruptions would pump significant greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide and methane. This would further heat the planet and potentially create a vicious circle, in which rising temperatures melt ice that leads to further eruptions and more global heating.
Pablo Moreno-Yaeger, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US, who led the research, said: “As glaciers retreat due to climate change, our findings suggest these volcanoes go on to erupt more frequently and more explosively.”
The research, which was presented at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in Prague, and is in the final stages of review with an academic journal, involved camping high in the Andes, among active and dormant volcanoes.
Detailed work on one volcano, called Mocho-Choshuenco, used radioisotope dating to estimate the age of volcanic rocks produced before, during and after the last ice age, when the 1,500-metre-thick Patagonian ice sheet covered the area. Analysis of the minerals in the rocks also revealed the depth and temperature at which the rocks formed.
This data revealed that thick ice cover had suppressed the volume of eruptions between 26,000 and 18,000 years ago, allowing a large reservoir of magma to build up 10-15km (6.2-9.3 miles) below the surface. After the ice melted, from about 13,000 years ago, the pressure on the magma chamber was released, gasses in the liquid or molten rock expanded and explosive eruptions followed.
“We found that following deglaciation, the volcano starts to erupt way more, and also changes composition,” said Moreno-Yaeger. The composition changed as the magma melted crustal rocks while eruptions were suppressed. This made the molten rock more viscous and more explosive on eruption.
Iceland has experienced eruptions linked to the melting of its glaciers and ice caps. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
“Our study suggests this phenomenon isn’t limited to Iceland, where increased volcanicity has been observed, but could also occur in Antarctica,” he said. “Other continental regions, like parts of North America, New Zealand and Russia, also now warrant closer scientific attention.”
Previous research has shown volcanic activity increased globally by two to six times after the last ice age, but the Chilean study was one of the first to show how this happened. A similar phenomenon was reported via the analysis of rocks in eastern California in 2004.
A recent review by scientists found there had been relatively little study on how the climate crisis had been affecting volcanic activity. They said more research was “critically important” in order to be better prepared for the damage caused by volcanic eruptions to people and their livelihoods and for possible climate-volcano feedback loops that could amplify the climate crisis. For example, more extreme rainfall is also expected to increase violent explosive eruptions.
“We joked about this when we were filming – ‘Oh, here she is again in the toilet.’ I really hope I’ve had my last encounter in a bathroom. I’ve done my fair share,” laughs the new co-lead of Channel 4’s hit drama. “It’s definitely not in my contract to have one of those scenes in the toilet, but this celebrates older women and that’s great. I’m 41 and it’s no longer the case that you’re sexually washed up at 25 or 30. Women don’t die at 40.”
The first series of the sexually charged drama, set in an upmarket Leeds cul-de-sac, was a huge hit for Channel 4 and in the second series, Scholey plays surgeon Charlotte Roberts, one half of a respected medical couple whose work and home life are inextricably intertwined.
The arrival of Mia (Aggy K Adams), a nurse who moves next door to Charlotte and her anaesthetist husband Jacob (Sam Palladio) and starts work at their hospital, ensures no inch of the couples’s life – and bodies – remains untouched.
“I actually read for Evie, the part Eleanor Tomlinson played in series one,” reveals the Wakefield-born actor. “I really liked the script and the character. Then I read the second series and thought I’m like Charlotte in so many ways; not necessarily what she gets up to, but her type. She’s very focused, quite serious. We’re the same age and from the same place – it’s fairly perfect casting for me.
Annabel Scholey as Charlotte in The Couple Next Door. Channel 4
“She’s a West Yorkshire girl and I haven’t played many of those because people don’t realise I’m from there. I wanted to be reclaimed by the North,” laughs the actor, who now lives on the border of Wiltshire and Somerset. “My parents, sister and nephew still live in Yorkshire, so I go there a lot.”
To prepare for filming, Scholey attended open-heart surgery, which left her “mind-blown”. To add to the pressure, a surgeon at that procedure was also a series adviser and even plays Charlotte’s resident during surgery, which Scholey describes as “terrifying.” That wasn’t the only aspect of the role that conjured up some trepidation.
An undeniable thrust behind the first series’ success was the adult treatment of sexual relationships, those intimate scenes exuding a passion and hunger that seduced viewers. Before a chemistry read with Palladio – where prospective leads are paired to learn if they have a complementary energy – Scholey rewatched the first series to “remind myself what I might be in for.” She also discussed the role with her husband Jim, who she married 18 months ago and unlike her first husband with whom she has a daughter, doesn’t work in the industry. “I needed to check with him as well if he was OK with that because it’s quite a sexual part and a sexual story and it’s important to discuss that with your partner. He’s very supportive.”
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Such support extended on to the set with the intimacy coordinator Vanessa Coffey. “I really enjoyed working with Vanessa. There are a few quite intense sex scenes and I felt very safe having Vanessa there – and she’s an ex-dancer, so the scenes were all beautifully choreographed,” explains Scholey, who admits to struggling with the introduction of these specialists.
“I’ve spent two-thirds of my career not using one, so it was a shift. It’s tricky when actresses who’ve had to deal with these scenes on their own suddenly have a person with a set way of behaving. To have a specific person behind the camera with an eye for specific details, protecting your modesty is really good. They know exactly what’s in your contract.”
I ask if that sense of safety removes any awkwardness when family and friends watch those scenes. “No, it’s still incredibly embarrassing. I give my mum time codes – ‘At five minutes and 30 seconds, get Dad out of the room’. I’ve now got a father-in-law to worry about as well, so he also gets time codes.”
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Few scenes convey British pomp and soft power more than the King and Queen in a carriage procession through the picturesque streets of Windsor. They are being joined on Tuesday by Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron for the first state visit by a French president since 2008, and the first by a European Union leader since Brexit.
The Prince and Princess of Wales will be there too – a Royal Salute will be fired and Macron will inspect a guard of honour. But at a time of jeopardy in Europe, this three-day visit to Windsor and London promises much more than ceremony.
There is a genuine hope that the coming days will make a difference to both countries.
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Macron and Starmer joined the German chancellor on a train ride to Kyiv recently, sending a powerful message of support for Ukraine at a time when US commitment appeared to be flagging
Macron will address MPs and peers at Westminster, and he and Brigitte will be treated to a state banquet back at Windsor. The trip will culminate with a UK-France summit, co-chaired by Sir Keir Starmer and Macron, during which the two governments hope to reach an agreement on the return of irregular migrants.
They will also host Ukraine’s leader by video as they try to maintain arms supplies to his military.
But the wider question is how closely aligned they can really become, and whether they can put any lingering mistrust after Brexit behind them.
And, given that the trip will involve much pageantry – with the tour moving from the streets of Windsor, the quadrangle of the Castle and later to the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster – how crucial is King Charles III’s role in this diplomacy?
Resetting a ‘unique partnership’
It was less than two months ago that the UK and EU agreed to “reset” relations in London. Ties with France in particular had warmed considerably, driven partly by personal understanding but also strategic necessity.
The two neighbours have much in common: they are both nuclear powers and members of the United Nations Security Council.
They are also both looking to update a 15-year-old defence pact known as the Lancaster House treaties, which established a 10,000-strong Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF), and they have recently been working on broadening it to include other Nato and European countries.
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Macron has seen much of Sir Keir lately at summits in London, Canada and The Hague – and Starmer has visited France five times since becoming PM
“It has always been a unique partnership,” says former French ambassador to the UK Sylvie Bermann. “I think this partnership will be crucial in the future.”
All of this is unlikely to escape the notice of US President Donald Trump, who is also promised a state visit, his second to the UK, probably in September.
King Charles is ‘more than a figurehead’
King Charles, who is 76, has already navigated some complex royal diplomacy this year.
Macron was the first European leader to visit Trump in the White House in February, but it was Sir Keir who stole the show days later, handing him a personal invitation from the King.
Then, when Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to Europe fresh from a bruising meeting with Trump at the White House in February, it was King Charles who welcomed him to Sandringham, and then met him again at Windsor in June.
He has spoken in the past of the heroism of Ukrainians in the face of “indescribable aggression”.
Even before ascending the throne, King Charles amassed decades of experience in international affairs (he is also fluent in French). He was only 21 when he attended the funeral in 1970 of Charles de Gaulle, the wartime general who became the architect of France’s current Fifth Republic.
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King Charles at 21, attending the Mass for Charles de Gaulle in Paris
He went on to become the longest-serving Prince of Wales in history, and now he is King he has weekly audiences with the prime minister. “The choreography is a strange dance, I suspect, between Number Ten and the Palace,” says royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams.
“There’s no doubt at all that Charles is considerably more than a figurehead.”
Windsor Castle, which dates back to the first Norman king, William the Conqueror, has hosted French presidents before. But there is a quiet significance in the appearance of the Prince and Princess of Wales in welcoming Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, as Catherine recovers from treatment for cancer.
Between them, the King and Macron have played their part in resetting relations between the two neighbours, and by extension with the European Union too.
AFP via Getty Images
Queen Camilla played table tennis at a sports centre in Paris with Brigitte Macron
The King is a francophile, says Marc Roche, a columnist and royal commentator for French media: “He has always had a good relationship with France.”
A year after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, it was France that King Charles and Queen Camilla chose for their first state visit in September 2023.
Macron had reminded the world in 2022 that the late Queen had “climbed the stairs of the Élysée Palace” six times – more than any other foreign sovereign. His words were warmly received in the UK.
The King received a standing ovation after an address in French to the Senate, and the Queen played table tennis at a sports centre with Brigitte Macron. France’s first lady has since visited her in London for a cross-Channel book award.
Gentle touches they may have been, but it followed a very rough period in Franco-British relations.
Brexit negotiations soured relations
The mood had soured during negotiations over Brexit, which the French president said was based on a lie.
Then four years ago, Australia pulled out of a deal to buy 12 French submarines and signed a defence pact with the UK and US instead. The French foreign minister called it a “stab in the back”.
Boris Johnson, who was prime minister at the time, told the French they should “prenez un grip” and “donnez-moi un break”.
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French-British relations soured during negotiations over Brexit, which Macron (pictured with Johnson in 2020) said was based on a lie
It had been Macron’s idea for a European Political Community (EPC) in 2022 that brought the UK into a broad group of countries all seeking to respond to Russia’s full-scale invasion.
In 2023 the then-Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, sought to turn the page on several years of frosty relations at a Franco-British summit in Paris.
British and French prime ministers have come and gone: the UK had three in 2022, and last year France had four. It was Sunak’s team that organised last year’s EPC summit at Blenheim, but it was Starmer as new prime minister who chaired it.
Sébastien Maillard, who helped advise the French presidency in setting up the EPC, said he believed “on both sides there is still a lack of trust… The memory of these difficult times has not vanished”.
“Trust needs time to build and perhaps the Russian threat, support for Ukraine and how to handle Trump are three compelling reasons to rebuild that trust,” says Maillard, who is now at the Chatham House think tank.
Susi Dennison, of the European Council on Foreign Relations in Paris, agrees relations with France are not back to pre-Brexit levels, but suggests some things the UK and France are “bickering” about were being argued over even before the Brexit vote.
For Macron, this is a chance to not only improve the relationship but also to shine on the international stage when his popularity at home has sunk, Mr Roche believes. “It’s a very important visit, especially the first day, because the French are fascinated by the Royal Family.”
After eight years in power, Macron’s second term still has almost two years to run, but he has paid the price politically for calling snap elections last year and losing his government’s majority. His prime minister, François Bayrou, faces a monumental task in the coming months in steering next year’s budget past France’s left-wing and far-right parties.
As president, Macron’s powers – his domaine réservé – cover foreign policy, defence and security, but traditionally France’s prime minister does not travel with the head of state, so Macron comes to the UK with a team of ministers who will handle far more than international affairs.
The difficult question of migration
During the summit, the two teams will also work on nuclear energy, artificial intelligence and cultural ties. Differences still have to be sorted over “post-Brexit mobility” for students and other young people, and France is expected to push the Starmer government on that.
But most of the headlines on Thursday’s UK-France summit will cover the two main issues: defence and migration.
Defending Ukraine will take pride of place. An Élysée Palace source said it would discuss “how to seriously maintain Ukraine’s combat capability” and regenerate its military.
“On defence our relationship is closer than any other countries,” says former ambassador Sylvie Bermann. “We have to prepare for the future… to strengthen the deterrence of Europe.”
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Both countries want to sign an agreement on migrant returns. More than 20,000 people have arrived in the UK in small boats in the first six months of 2025
And if a ceasefire were agreed in Ukraine, the two countries could provide the backbone of the “reassurance force” being proposed by the “coalition of the willing”. Sir Keir and Macron have played a prominent part in forming this coalition, but so too have the military chiefs of staff of both countries.
Migration is the stickiest problem the two countries face, however. How they deal with their differences on it – particularly on small boats – is crucial to their future relationship.
They are especially keen to sign an agreement on migrant returns and on French police stopping people boarding “taxi boats” to cross the Channel.
France has long argued that the UK has to address the “pull factors” that drive people to want to risk their lives on the boats – the UK, for its part, already pays for many of the 1,200 French gendarmes to patrol France’s long northern coastline to stop the smugglers’ boats.
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King Charles previously called on France and the UK to find common ground “to reinvigorate our friendship”
The countries are believed to have been working on the terms of a “one-in, one-out” agreement, so that for every small-boat arrival in the UK that France takes back, the UK would allow in one asylum seeker from France seeking family reunification.
Several countries on the southern coasts of Europe are unimpressed because it could mean France sending those asylum seekers handed back by the UK on to their country of entry into the EU, bordering the Mediterranean.
In the UK, the opposition Conservatives have branded the idea “pathetic”, accusing the government of a “national record – for failure” on curbing small-boat crossings.
And yet every country in Europe is looking for a way to cut illegal border crossings. Meghan Benton, of the Migration Policy Institute, believes a Franco-British deal could work as a possible pilot for the rest of Europe: “What works for the Channel could also work for the Mediterranean.”
Any agreement on this tricky issue could also signal a real, practical improvement in the countries’ political relationship. France’s right-wing Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, has already been working with Labour’s Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to try to find a workable solution.
How far they get, and its wider impact on Europe, is still to be decided, but it does reflect a new willingness between the two neighbours to tackle the divisions between them.
Boris Johnson once accused France of wanting to punish the UK for Brexit. That difficult chapter appears to be over.
As Susi Dennison puts it: “There’s a certain distance that will always be there, but things are operating quite well.”
During King Charles’ 2023 state visit to France he called on the two countries to find common ground, “to reinvigorate our friendship to ensure it is fit for the challenge of this, the 21st Century”.
And so this visit will help show – both in the relationships between individuals and on concrete policy debates – whether his call has been answered.
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Finally, carting it around, heart thumping, until you can sneak it into someone else’s locker, bag or hand, hoping you’ve successfully conveyed your warm heart with your cool tastes, and that its positive reception will make all the difference to your entire life, for ever.
Mix Tape, the BBC’s new decade-spanning love story, sees Alison and Daniel reconnect three decades after their teenage romance in Sheffield. The present-day pair communicate with each other from opposite sides of the world through songs of their past, before we’re back in 1989 when they dance, kiss, fall out, make up and inevitably part.
It’s the latest addition to the canon that includes huge hit dramas Normal People and One Day. It’s The Way We Were for the Netflix generation and makes you wonder how many TV commissioners are staring dreamily above laptops, listening to old records and dreaming up projects where they get to channel their more energetic, innocent selves.
What sets Mix Tape apart is that it does what it says on the tin, or the tape, with this era-specific ritual providing the soundtrack, and the choice of tunes telling us how we’re meant to feel about these two. The best-selling UK single of 1989 was Black Box’s Ride on Time, but that was never going to pass muster for these two semi-outsiders.
Young Daniel (Rory Walton-Smith) and young Alison (Florence Hunt). BBC
Thus, on our bopping bingo card we get the Cure’s spiky romance, more proof that every teenager believes they’re the first to discover Psychedelic Furs, and New Order, summing it all up with the lyrics to Bizarre Love Triangle: “It’s a problem I find/Livin’ a life that I can’t leave behind.”
Why were mix tapes so charming? Because they relied on brain and heart, not algorithms; because they made a personal, bespoke gift that expressed fathoms about the creator, and their hopes for the recipient. And they belonged to an era where effort, exposure and personal pitfall were all around.
For two decades, mid-70s to mid-90s, we lived in a pre-social-media sweet spot where young people had just enough freedom and technology to secure themselves a rite-of-passage emotional pile-up. Without mobile phones and messaging, if someone didn’t turn up outside McDonald’s at the appointed hour, it was curtains.
Letters – remember them! – could go astray or, worse, be intercepted by a third party, a maze of fateful roads left untravelled in real life, and now a new generation of screenwriters is reaping the benefits.
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But what about the rest of us? For sure, we all enjoy the instant gratification of a text message, a playlist, a personal jukebox on our phones that doesn’t have the giveaway sound of Tommy Vance’s dulcet tones, but does something that requires so little effort have any enduring value?
These days, actor John Cusack could presumably win back the heart of his lost love by “liking” one of her Instagram posts. Instead, he remains beloved by millions for putting himself on the line in 1989’s Say Anything, standing outside her window, ghetto blaster aloft, playing their song, Peter Gabriel’s In Your Eyes.
I’m clearly getting old, which means I can only turn back to New Order who asked on behalf of the rest of us: “Whenever I get this way, I just don’t know what to say/Why can’t we be ourselves like we were yesterday?”
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Mix Tape begins at 9pm on BBC Two on Tuesday 15th July with episodes available on BBC iPlayer.
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Paul Kirby
BBC
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