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.