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Choosing former French minister and European commissioner to oversee UK’s exit negotiations dubbed an ‘act of war.’
Michel Barnier, a former French minister and veteran of tussles with the City of London, was on Wednesday named as the European Commission’s chief Brexit negotiator — and the Brits weren’t happy.
Barnier, 65, will be in charge of preparing for talks between the U.K. and EU following Britain’s vote to leave the bloc. A former Commission vice president, he will lead the institution’s Taskforce for the Preparation and Conduct of the Negotiations with the U.K. after British Prime Minister Theresa May triggers Article 50 and begins divorce proceedings.
The right-leaning British media reacted with predictable outrage to the appointment of a Frenchman to the role. The Sun’s political editor, Tom Newton Dunn, tweeted “hard to think of a more anti-British figure, declaration of war.”
That sentiment was echoed by Tom Shipman of the Sunday Times, who tweeted “appointing Michel Barnier, one of the least popular ex commissioners in London, as point man for Brexit is an act of war by Juncker.”
The Daily Express leaned on the caps lock button as it wrote about the “Most DANGEROUS man in EU” and bemoaned that Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had hired a “French FEDERALIST to negotiate on Brexit.”
Controversial blogger Guido Fawkes said the Commission had appointed a “hardline Britain basher.”
Not everyone was so upset. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the Telegraph said Barnier was an “olive branch pick.”
By appointing Barnier, who will start work in October, Juncker has chosen a man who has overseen much of the uneasy and at times tense dialogue between the eurozone and the U.K., during his years as commissioner in charge of the single market from 2010 to 2014.
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During his second stint in Brussels — he was also a member of the Commission headed by Romano Prodi between 1999 and 2004 — Barnier’s main achievement may well have been to convince London financiers, in spite of their initial reservations, that a Frenchman was not necessarily out to get them with hostile, burdensome regulation in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Bankers may not remember fondly all the reforms — notably the one that capped their bonuses — but the City of London as a whole also knows that none of the financial reforms initiated under Barnier’s watch were ever adopted without the consent of the British government.
He even sided, if discreetly, with the U.K. in one of its periodic fights to ensure the eurozone would not end up laying down the law for the whole of the EU. When the European Central Bank wanted to force all clearing operations in euros to be repatriated within the monetary union, the U.K. sued. At the time Barnier didn’t hide that he thought the ECB’s actions ran counter to the spirit of the EU single market. The European Court of Justice ultimately sided with him — and the Brits.
This time he can be counted on to defend the EU’s interests fiercely while doing his best to keep the U.K. as close as possible to the single market. He will also act as a representative of the Commission, and national governments in Berlin or Paris shouldn’t expect preferential treatment.
While the choice of a Frenchman to lead the Commission talks with Britain might seem to some a provocation, a senior EU diplomat called Barnier “a logical choice in the circumstance that we’re in. He knows financial services,” an area in which the future relationship between Brussels and London will be of critical importance.
“I think it’s good because we know the French will be demanding in these negotiations, they will be firm,” the diplomat said. “It’s not that he’s a French representative but a French mind. It’s logical, and he will have connections in France to explain what’s going on if necessary and convince what will be good.”
The question is whether the Commission will have as much power as it seeks in the Brexit negotiations, which will begin once London has triggered Article 50. Both Angela Merkel and François Hollande have already signaled their preference for national governments to take the lead in what will be a subtle political high-wire act.
At least Barnier can claim some serious knowledge of one of the hot-button issues that will be at the heart of the negotiations: the so-called “financial passport” that City fund managers can claim to sell their products in the EU without further regulation. Giving up that passport will be the major concession EU governments like France will ask if the U.K. is allowed to limit immigration from EU countries.
Not your average French politician
Barnier does not hail from the typical mold of French elites, raised in the same school and trained in public service, whose reputation for arrogance has often hindered their international influence. He’s a graduate of one of France’s top business schools but went into politics early in his native province of Savoie. A conservative, he has never been an ally of former president Nicolas Sarkozy — and is supporting one of Sarkozy’s rivals, Bruno Le Maire, in the conservative party’s presidential primary.
Barnier is also one of the few French politicians who seems to have dedicated his political career to the European cause — and, even rarer, who continues to do so. Before becoming European commissioner, he was European affairs minister under former president Jacques Chirac from 1993 to 1995, and briefly served as foreign affairs minister in 2004-2005.
The Frenchman has become something of a go-to guy for the Commission. “Michel is a skilled negotiator with rich experience in major policy areas relevant to the negotiations, namely as minister for foreign affairs and for agriculture, and as member of the Commission in charge of regional policy, institutional reforms and of internal market and services,” Juncker said in a statement.
Barnier, the Commission president added, “has an extensive network of contacts in the capitals of all EU member states and in the European Parliament, which I consider a valuable asset for this function.”
That could prove especially useful considering the inter-institutional struggle in Brussels immediately after the Brexit vote over who would lead the negotiations on behalf of the EU: the Council or the Commission. The Council was quick to name Belgian diplomat Didier Seeuws as its lead Brexit negotiator — in a move that irritated the Commission.
A senior Commission official said the appointment of Seeuws was followed by “long complaints about unfairness of [Council President Donald] Tusk’s people [for naming a lead negotiator so quickly].”
At a summit in late June, EU leaders tried to provide clarity on the issue, agreeing that once Britain officially began the EU divorce proceedings, the Council would “adopt guidelines for the negotiations of an agreement with the U.K.,” and then the “European Commission and the European Parliament will play their full role in accordance with the Treaties.”
The Commission on Wednesday reiterated its position that there will be no exit negotiations until the U.K. formally triggers the withdrawal process.
“In line with the principle of ‘no negotiation without notification,’ the task of the chief negotiator in the coming months will be to prepare the ground internally for the work ahead,” the Commission said in a statement.
“One the one hand, it’s a safe pair of hands, on the other, it’s funny to give [the Brexit job] to a Frenchman,” the senior Commission official said.
http://www.politico.eu/article/mich...chief-europe-negotiations-consquences-future/
There nothing like a frog to take the piss out of a Pomm..
