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Michel Barnier knows what good looks do. “Time is no longer running,” says the Frenchman, when he spoke on Christmas Eve shortly after 4 pm in the press room of the European Commission. On countless occasions in the past, the EU’s chief negotiator had urged people to hurry and warned in English: “Time is ticking.”
Shortly before Christmas and after nights of negotiations that included pizza deliveries, the EU and the UK agreed on a trade deal. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the President of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, had phoned several times about it and, of course, it is the German who can announce the result. The chaos of a “no deal” Brexit has been avoided, Britain’s Johnson had to make concessions on fish and the EU side is convinced that disputes can be easily resolved and that London will have to pay fines for violations.
“We have achieved a lot from a position of strength,” says von der Leyen, both parties could be satisfied. She describes the performance of the negotiating team as “outstanding.” Barnier also seems satisfied and is following his usual line: he thanks the many “women and men” of the “UK Task Force” he leads, as well as his British counterpart Lord David Frost and his team, and avoids any arrogance. And joy. . He only complains that the British will no longer participate in the Erasmus program and sums up the mood of many: This “day of relief” is “tinged with sadness”.
The fate of the Irish island was very important to Barnier
When the British voted for Brexit in June 2016, Jean-Claude Juncker was still the head of the EU Commission. The Luxembourger offered Barnier the position of chief Brexit negotiator and the Christian Democrat and avid mountaineer from the Savoy region accepted. Much has changed since then: Juncker was followed by von der Leyen and Boris Johnson ruled London in place of Theresa May. He replaced British chief negotiator Olly Robbins with Frost. Sabine Weyand, who was responsible for the details as Barnier’s deputy in the first phase, now heads the Directorate-General for Trade in the EU Commission. But Barnier stayed, and it was a stroke of luck for the EU-27, which did not allow itself to split.
The French combine their love of precision and perseverance with a feeling for regional needs and self-discipline. In the pre-Crown period, Barnier was bombarded by reporters everywhere with questions trying to get him to make predictions or provocations. Barnier, completely rational and ascetic-looking, always remains in his role as a gentleman and hardly comments on the turbulent British domestic politics. In addition to the phrase “the clock is ticking”, he used to say: “I am deeply sorry for Brexit, but I respect the decision”.
As a Brexit negotiator, Barnier never tires of declaring that the EU cannot compromise civil rights any more than it can compromise access to the internal market. Anyone who wants to leave the Union on their own must feel the disadvantages, or simply submit to the rules. It will still be days and weeks before all the details of the 1,200-plus-page trade deal are known and discussed, but many things are likely to be different and especially worse for the British.
For Barnier it was very important that the UK’s exit from the EU did not have too negative consequences for the Irish island, where the only land border between the EU and Great Britain is located. “What really counts is the people and peace,” emphasized the Frenchman, who, as a former foreign minister, also knows the region of the former civil war well. The smaller EU countries, in particular, were impressed by how hard Barnier fought for the interests of the five million Irish, and Prime Minister Michéal Martin’s gratitude is just as great.
Barnier and Merkel were environment ministers at the same time.
Incidentally, the Irishman Martin was not yet in office when Barnier became “Monsieur Brexit.” Today it is clear that the professional politician prepared almost all the steps of his previous professional career for this task. Already at the age of 27, Barnier, who is almost six feet tall, became a deputy to Parliament in France; in the 1990s he was Minister of the Environment, at the same time as Angela Merkel, and EU Commissioner responsible for both regional policy (1999-2004) and the internal market. Back then, in 2010, he called it Daily telegraph “the most dangerous man in Europe” because he demanded strict conditions for the financial markets that are so important to London.
From his short time as a member of the European Union, he has known the importance of the European Parliament, which has to approve all Brexit agreements and which Barnier keeps updated. Until recently I had the greatest confidence there. The Frenchman also maintained contact with trade unions, companies, civil society and national parliaments with perfect courtesy.
The fact that the father of three was also the French Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries from 2007 to 2009 also turned out to be a stroke of luck, as most of the arguments were about fishing quotas or details about “pelagic fish stocks. “That is, who and how many herring, mackerel or sprat can he catch. Speaking to Bloomberg, a weary negotiator said: “You can’t say the exact same things about fish over and over again without going a little crazy.”
Barnier and his team also braved all the adversities that the corona pandemic brought with it: from less efficient and potentially unsafe videoconferencing negotiations, various infections (Barnier also tested positive for Corona in the spring) to more difficult travel conditions than trains. . it rarely operates between Brussels and London.
Barnier still has a final deadline
The 69-year-old Frenchman does not rest much at the moment: on Christmas Day he reports to the ambassadors of the 27 EU states in Brussels for almost three hours. According to EU diplomats, he and his team have been “praised for their steadfastness and resilience”, which they have shown under “immense pressure”. The cooperation with the Member States was also “extraordinary” and helped to appear united.
The next briefing with the Brexit group of the European Parliament is scheduled for Monday. MEPs are upset that the most comprehensive EU trade agreement of all time has to enter into force provisionally due to time constraints and they cannot fully examine it in advance. But the praise of David McAllister (CDU), the highest Brexit representative of the EU Parliament, which was spread through a tweet, cannot be explained solely by the fact that they are all Christian Democrats: “My special thanks goes to Ursula von der Leyen and Michel Barnier and theirs. Teams for their patience and perseverance. Throughout the whole process, I very much appreciated the close and trusting cooperation with the European Parliament. “
Many deadlines have passed in the course of the Brexit saga, but another has recently been highlighted in Brussels: Michel Barnier will turn 70 on 9 January and can therefore no longer work for the Commission. With Brexit’s biggest hurdle already cleared, some are already speculating about the next tough task Barnier could take on: Due to Corona, the “Conference on the Future of Europe” could not yet begin. So far, the EU Parliament and member states have not yet been able to agree on who should lead this politically sensitive process. There is no age limit for this – it just takes a lot of confidence.
