Barnier's, EU's 'Mr Brexit', takes on new role as French PM

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00:00Well, let's go live to Brussels on the program there. Pierre Banizet is standing by for us.

00:05Pierre, look, Michel Barnier is somebody who's had two major European roles, Brexit negotiator for

00:14the EU and the head of the EU Commission. Tell us then about his long career as a sort of European

00:21statesman. He was, in a way, the longest serving European commissioner because he's had three

00:32European careers, three different ones, actually, because he was first nominated as the French

00:39commissioner in 99, when there were two commissioners by country at that time. He was

00:45commissioner for regional policy, which was not the main point of his five year term. The main

00:54point, the main focus of what he did then was to sit in the Convention for the Future of Europe,

01:01the convention that gave the constitutional treaty, which was rejected by the Dutch and the

01:07French in 2005. Then he went back to France in order to be a minister in Paris and came back

01:16for a second term of commissioner where he was nominated as the common market commissioner.

01:23And that's where his political commitment really gave all its measure. And he was the one who

01:33pushed for a very strong reform of the European common market. And that was the second leg of his

01:40European voyage, if you want, because after that he came back because he was nominated by Jean-Claude

01:46Juncker as Mr Brexit, the one who negotiated the exit of the United Kingdom. Indeed, and that was

01:54a thorny, long, difficult job that he had as the Brexit negotiator. What was Bernier's reputation

02:03in that period? Well, that's where he gave his full measure, if you want. First, he started out

02:12by learning the language and something which he had never bothered to do before. He learned English

02:19in a few years at the start of his stint as a Brexit negotiator. That started out quite well

02:27for him because he did it the old politician's way. That is, he went throughout Europe talking to

02:34fishermen, to agriculturists, farmers and so on in order to be able to have the full picture.

02:39And he was able to talk with Downing Street. He was able to talk with the negotiators

02:46in front of him, even though from the British side that changed quite a lot. And he managed to

02:53find a way to have this exit treaty signed and to follow it up afterwards when the United

03:01Kingdom came out. And he was rather respected from the other side of the channel, what the

03:07Brussels they call the wrong side of the channel nowadays. And he was quite respected in Europe as

03:13well because he's a hard worker. That was his main reputation here during this stint as a negotiator.

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