In total, Michel Barnier spent 14 years of his political life in Brussels. A long stay that is enough to make him atypical within the French political class. “I know that Michel Barnier has the interests of Europe and France at heart, as his long experience demonstrates,” writes the current President of the European Commission Ursula Von der Leyen in a congratulatory message published on social networks.
It was as the European Brexit negotiator (2016-2021) that the new Prime Minister had his moment of glory. But before that, he had already held the position of European Commissioner twice. After managing the EU’s regional policy (1999-2004), he took charge of the burning issue of financial services between 2010 and 2014, in the wake of the subprime crisis.
The “scourge of the City”
During this second term, he presented several dozen legislative texts intended to regulate the European banking and financial sectors. His interlocutors at the time did not forget the almost legendary colour Excel spreadsheet that the Savoyard carried everywhere and that he regularly pulled out, particularly in the press room of the European Commission, when he wanted to present the progress of this titanic work. When he left, almost all the legislation appeared in the “adopted” column.
The British, who had not appreciated the efforts to put European finance in order, then saw the return of the man their tabloids had nicknamed “the scourge of the City” as their main interlocutor after the 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union. Michel Barnier preferred to recall at every opportunity that he had voted for the first time in his life in the referendum for the United Kingdom to join the EU in 1972. Undaunted, always courteous, he successfully led the negotiation to its conclusion, regularly speaking in English that was always strongly tinged with a French accent. “The clock is ticking”, he hammered home distinctly at each press conference, because the negotiations were not progressing quickly enough in his eyes.
Very well supported by a team of technical experts and outstanding senior civil servants, he will succeed in the feat of maintaining against all odds the unity of the 27 European countries that London will regularly try to undermine. A success obtained by constantly traveling on the continent and constantly informing diplomats and politicians of the state of the discussions. We will never publicly see cracks appear in the European camp. “He is a mountaineer, he has a sense of climbing slowly but surely to reach the summit. It is the Barnier method, unite to build”, the UMP European deputy Michel Dantin, a Savoyard like him, told us at the time.
Fading star in Brussels
These 14 years spent in the European arcana have given him experience in long discussions and conciliations to extract agreements between different political families. “He has the culture of compromise”, summarizes Horizon MEP Nathalie Loiseau, who led the European Parliament’s contact group on Brexit. The new Prime Minister had dreamed of becoming President of the European Commission in 2019, but he had not received the support of Emmanuel Macron, who had preferred the German Ursula von der Leyen.
In recent years, his star has clearly faded in Brussels. Europeans choked when, in July 2021, as a candidate in the LR primary for the last presidential election, he argued in favor of a unilateral moratorium on immigration and the establishment of a “constitutional shield” that would allow France to exempt itself from European law in this area. Shocked, the European Commission then recalled that France must respect the Treaties and the preeminence of the European Court of Justice. But the far right appreciated the proposal. It probably has not forgotten it.