This is the thirteenth edition of the UK in a Changing Europe’s regulatory divergence tracker. It outlines how UK and EU rules and regulations have diverged in the period October 2024-June 2025. The previous tracker found that the new government appeared to be ‘laying the groundwork’ for greater regulatory alignment with the EU, as it paused several major initiatives that would have led to divergence. This edition finds that the shift has now kicked off in earnest, with 21 cases of regulatory alignment identified – compared to four last time.
Though it is the commitments to alignment made at May’s UK-EU summit which have grabbed the headlines, the tracker finds that there is plenty more going on below the surface, with several different types of alignment at play. There is ‘dynamic alignment’, where the UK commits to sector-specific EU rules in exchange for much smoother EU market access in those areas; ‘voluntary alignment’ where the UK unilaterally mirrors EU rules to avoid unwanted divergence effects; and ‘coordination’ where the UK and EU take common steps on topics of shared interest.
Meanwhile, the UK continues to diverge from the EU in a few areas, most notably financial services, while the EU has implemented a wide range of new product regulations which have not been mirrored in Great Britain.
