U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is meeting French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday in a bilateral summit intended to strengthen security and intelligence ties between the neighboring nations, and to build goodwill as Britain negotiates its EU exit. Britain wants the meeting, at the Sandhurst military academy near London, to signal that the relationship won’t be weakened once the U.K. leaves the European Union in 2019. Under the Le Touquet deal signed in 2003, border controls were located on the French side of the Channel in a bid to get rid of migrant camps like 'The Jungle'. U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May will offer France £44.5 million ($62 million) to improve border security in Calais and other ports along the Channel, while the leaders also signed a treaty to speed up the processing of migrants in the coastal French town applying for asylum. And he contrasted Mr Macron’s bullish language with Britain’s willingness to pay another £45million towards security at joint border controls in Calais – and the offer of three helicopters to assist a French mission against jihadis in Africa. May said the U.K.-French summit “will underline that we remain committed to defending our people and upholding our values as liberal democracies in the face of any threat, whether at home or abroad.”

In a boost to Macron, Britain is throwing its backing behind the European Intervention Initiative, a multinational European military force that the French president has proposed. If you want access to the single market, including the financial services, be my guest, but it means that you need to contribute to the budget and acknowledge the European jurisdiction. The plan is in its early stages, but British officials don’t see it as an “EU army,” an idea on which the U.K. has long been cool. In return, France will send troops to join a U.K.-led NATO battle group in Estonia in 2019, aimed at countering an increasingly assertive Russia. Macron, on his first visit to the U.K. since winning the presidency in May 2017, also bears news that France will loan Britain the Bayeux Tapestry, an 11th-century panorama depicting the Norman conquest of England. The medieval masterpiece depicts a key moment in British history – one with particular resonance as Britain prepares to leave the EU.
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Theresa May says the government has seen no plans for Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's idea of building a road bridge across the English Channel between France and the United Kingdom.