Michel Barnier calls for post-Brexit UK-EU defense treaty

LONDON — The time is right for London and Brussels to negotiate a new treaty on defense and foreign policy cooperation, Michel Barnier, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, told POLITICO.

Speaking to the Ex Files newsletter for its 100th edition, Barnier — a former French presidential candidate and key player in Britain’s painstaking divorce from the EU — said it was now in both sides’ interest to collaborate in the face of shared challenges like the war in Ukraine, climate change and terrorism.

Pointing to the “goodwill” built up between London and Brussels this year with the signing of a long sought-after deal on trading rules for Northern Ireland, Barnier argued: “We need to build a new kind of [U.K.-EU] cooperation.”

During 2020 talks for the U.K. and EU’s post-Brexit trade deal, known as the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson decided not to negotiate a security treaty with the bloc.

That was despite such a plan being part of the political declaration Johnson had signed a few months earlier. The U.K. maintained there were ways of cooperating on issues like defense without formal treaty obligations.

“There were probably political reasons behind this refusal, but I think it was a mistake,” said Barnier, who led the EU’s negotiating team for the TCA and the preceding U.K.-EU Withdrawal Agreement.

“And now, I think it’s time — looking at the situation in Africa, looking at the war in Ukraine, looking at the new challenges for our security and the stability of the Continent — I think it would be in our common interest to negotiate a new treaty on defense, external policy, foreign policy and cooperation between the U.K. and the EU.”

The Financial Times reported over the weekend that the U.K. had declined an EU offer to collaborate formally on global issues — an idea the newspaper said was floated by European Council President Charles Michel.

But the U.K. does appear to be warming to the idea of reviving defense cooperation with the bloc — despite some misgivings from Conservative Brexiteers.

A U.K. minister revealed in June that Brussels and London had reached consensus on the “majority” of an agreement for the U.K. to join a military project under the EU’s defense coordination group, known as the Permanent Structured Cooperation. 

Brexit reflections

Speaking from a holiday on France’s Atlantic coast, Barnier — who became a household name across the U.K. as it negotiated its exit from the EU — continued to express regret over Britain’s decision to leave the bloc.

Brexit is an outcome he continues to call a “nonsense” and a “lose-lose game” for the U.K. and the EU. While proud to have led “extraordinary” negotiations on Brussels’ behalf, he noted that the EU had never before had to engage in trade talks with a third country “to rebuild barriers, not to delete barriers.”

“Until now, I do not see any positive consequences of leaving the EU,” he said. Britain’s current difficulties are not all linked to Brexit, Barnier insisted, but are “more serious” as a result of it.

While cautious not to opine on what the U.K. should or shouldn’t do next, he said “the door is open” for Britain to rejoin the EU if it so wishes. But he warned that regulatory divergence from the EU — which “the U.K. is free” to do and was “one of the main reasons for Brexit” — would make such a task all the harder.

“If you have created too big a divergence, it could be a problem because you have to reduce this divergence” to meet the rules and standards of the single market, he said.

‘No way’ on rules of origin

One potential new flashpoint for U.K. and EU relations is already coming into view.

Under the TCA that Barnier helped negotiate, rules of origin crucial to electric vehicle manufacturing will tighten from January 1 next year.

The changes will require 45 percent of a new electric vehicle and its parts to be made inside the U.K. or EU when traded across the border — or face 10 percent tariffs. Those rules will tighten further in 2027.

The automotive industry in both Britain and the EU wants a stay of execution, and Kemi Badenoch, the U.K.’s business and trade secretary, has been pressing her EU counterpart about the upcoming cliff-edge.

But Barnier, who has kept across U.K. demands from afar, suggests further tinkering on rules of origin and financial services in the TCA — which also faces another deadline on EU banks using clearing houses in London — is unlikely.

“I think there is no way to do more flexibility on these two issues. No way,” he said.

The former Brexit negotiator continued to argue for one tweak that he believes will ease trade burdens between the two sides: a U.K.-EU veterinary agreement to facilitate “the exchange of animals and also vegetables.”

It’s a commitment made by the U.K.’s opposition Labour Party if it wins power.

“There is some way to improve, to facilitate, to use technology, but there is no way for any kind of cherry-picking,” he said. “In my view, as a French and European citizen, I will not accept any kind of cherry-picking.”

Asked if he would like to take part in the review of the TCA due midway through this decade, Barnier, who is no longer a member of the European Commission, replied: “There are many, many competent people in the Commission to deal with this.”

The Brexit talks “remain for me an extraordinary negotiation, but also a negative negotiation,” he said later in the interview. “I’ve still not understood the added value of Brexit — for the U.K. and for us.”