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Juncker puts veteran French politician in charge of Brexit talks Juncker puts veteran French politician in charge of Brexit talks
(about 3 hours later)
The head of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has appointed the French politician and former EU commissioner Michel Barnier to lead negotiations with Britain on its exit from the bloc. A veteran French politician and experienced Brussels insider who has repeatedly clashed with the City of London over financial services reforms is to lead talks on Britain’s exit from the EU.
Britain’s vote on 23 June to quit the 28-nation EU shocked European leaders who had bet on a vote to remain but they have since rallied, with France and the commission leading demands that negotiations should begin as soon as possible. Announcing the appointment of Michel Barnier, a former EU commissioner, the president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said he had wanted an experienced politician for an “important and challenging job”. Barnier would “help us develop a new partnership with the UK”, he said.
“I am very glad that my friend Michel Barnier accepted this important and challenging task. I wanted an experienced politician for this difficult job,” Juncker said in a statement. “I am sure that he will live up to this new challenge and help us to develop a new partnership with the United Kingdom.” A member of France’s centre-right Les Républicains (formerly UMP) party, Barnier, a former French cabinet minister, will take up his post on 1 October. He said in a tweet he was “honoured to be entrusted” with such a demanding task. The appointment will be viewed with some apprehension in London.
Barnier held the key financial services portfolio at the EU from 2010 to 2014, spearheading efforts to tame the eurozone debt crisis, which nearly brought down the single currency project and put the banking system back on track. honoured to be entrusted UK negotiation by @JunckerEU and @EU_Commission. Rendez-vous for beginning of demanding task on 1 October.
He was also a key architect of the EU’s new banking union, whose creation often put him at loggerheads with the City of London. He previously served as EU commissioner for regional policy and had stints as both French foreign minister and agriculture minister. As internal markets and services commissioner from 2010 to 2014, Barnier was in charge of the key financial services portfolio, leading the bloc’s attempts to contain the eurozone debt crisis and establish its new banking union.
Barnier tweeted to say he was honoured by the appointment, which he will take up on 1 October. He oversaw more than 40 different laws aimed at tightening banking and market regulations on activities such as short selling, clashing repeatedly with bankers and the British government over the EU’s planned cap on City bonuses.
Theresa May, the British prime minister, has said London will not be rushed into launching talks and most likely will begin negotiations early next year. Barnier threatened “a coordinated response” from Brussels against banks that sought to dodge the cap by paying top staff extra allowances after the UK, outvoted 26 to one in Brussels on the proposal, launched a legal challenge at the European court of justice in 2013.
Juncker said Barnier was a “skilled negotiator with rich experience in major policy areas relevant to the negotiations [and] has an extensive network of contacts”. The former deputy prime minister and now Liberal Democrat Europe spokesman, Nick Clegg, said the appointment “will set alarm bells ringing in the City of London”, adding that he doubted Barnier would be eager to protect the City’s passporting rights to operate in the eurozone.
“He will report directly to me,” he added. Jacques Lafitte of the Avisa investment advisory group said the appointment sent a very clear message of intent to Britain. “After all these years that the City has demonised Michel Barnier, often unjustly, the commission could not have sent a firmer message to the English,” he told AFP.
Barnier, seen in London as likely to represent the interests of France and Germany rather than the peripheral nations, is popular in the centre-right European People’s party and will make it easier for a deal to be pushed through the European parliament, ministers said. He also knows the UK’s Brexit minister, David Davis, from his time as Europe minister in the late 1980s.
At a briefing in Westminster, one UK cabinet minister said Barnier’s appointment was a “clever move” by Juncker, giving the commission a direct line to the next French government, and also gave him a heavy hitter to deploy in the negotiations.
Denis MacShane, the former Labour Europe minister, said Barnier had “enormous experience as a national government minister, and knows better than anyone that EU negotiations are about national priorities”.
He added: “The UK press may try to demonise him or make him out to be unfriendly to Britain. It will be water off a duck’s back for Barnier. It makes perfect sense for Juncker to appoint a senior French politician; if he had named someone seen as an Anglophile there would have been instant suspicions in many EU capitals that the commission was ready to roll over for London.”
Juncker said in a statement that Barnier, 65, who has also held the EU’s regional policy portfolio and was appointed Juncker’s defence and security special adviser in 2015, was a “skilled negotiator with rich experience in major policy areas relevant to the negotiations”.
Seen by British Eurosceptics as a classic Brussels insider and altogether too integrationist for their taste, Barnier has also served as France’s environment, European affairs, foreign affairs and agriculture minister in several French governments. He also co-organised, with Jean-Claude Killy, the 1992 Winter Olympics.
An unsuccessful rival to Juncker for the job of commission president in 2014, Barnier will have the new official title of “chief negotiator in charge of leading the commission taskforce for the preparation and conduct of the negotiations with the United Kingdom”.
Theresa May has said London will take the time it needs to prepare its position before launching formal exit negotiations and Britain is not now expected by trigger article 50 of the treaty of Rome, setting the clock ticking on a maximum two years of talks, before early next year.