EU relations minister Nick Thomas-Symonds has ruled out joining a pan-European trade agreement, saying the UK does not "currently have plans" to sign up to the scheme. On Wednesday, the EU's new trade chief Maros Sefcovic told the BBC he was open to Britain joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention (PEM) as part of a post-Brexit "reset".

BBC interview to the idea of Britain joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention (PEM), a customs agreement between the EU and 20 countries, including several in the Middle East and the Balkans, where all countries share the same “rules of origin”.

A top Brussels bureaucrat has claimed the EU should “consider” letting the UK join a tariff-free customs scheme. However, given Sir Keir Starmer’s red lines on the Single Market and Customs Union, the EU’s new trade chief Maros Sefcovic stresseed such an agreement would represent membership of the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention (PEM).