Michel Barnier

National politics

Barnier served on the staff of various Gaullist ministers in the 1970s, before being elected in 1978, aged 27, to the French National Assembly as Deputy for the Department of Savoie representing the neo-Gaullists, Rally for the Republic (RPR), serving until 1993.

Together with Jean-Claude Killy he organised the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville as co-president of the COJO (Comité d'Organisation des Jeux Olympiques).

Barnier first joined the French Cabinet as Minister of the Environment following the Right's landslide victory in the 1993 legislative election. In 1995, Jacques Chirac appointed him Secretary of State for European Affairs, serving as such until the defeat of the presidential majority in the 1997 legislative election. Barnier then served as a European Commissioner for Regional Policy in the Prodi Commission from 1999 until 31 March 2004. Then he served as Foreign Minister of France in Jean-Pierre Raffarin's government until 5 June 2005 when Dominique de Villepin replaced him with Philippe Douste-Blazy. He considered he was unjustly sanctioned for the victory of the "No" in the French referendum over the European Constitution.

In March 2006, Barnier was elected Vice President of the European People's Party (EPP) for a three-year term. Under Nicolas Sarkozy's presidency, upon the reshuffle of the French cabinet, caused by the resignation of Alain Juppé after the 2007 French legislative election, he re-joined the French Cabinet as Minister of Agriculture.

European politics

Barnier and Joseph Daul in 2008

Barnier worked in 2006 as a special adviser to José Manuel Barroso, the then President of the European Commission, and presented a report to the Council of Ministers proposing the creation of a European civil-protection force.^[3] In 2006–2007, he served as member of the Amato Group, a group of high-level European politicians unofficially working on rewriting the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe into what became known as the Treaty of Lisbon following its rejection by French and Dutch voters.

Barnier led the UMP list in Ile-de-France for the 2009 European Parliament election. In February 2010 he was confirmed as European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services.^[4][5][6] In charge of European banking system reform, he argues for a "coherent single market with intelligent rules that apply everywhere".^[7]

He was twice appointed Acting Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship in Antonio Tajani's stead, from 19 April 2014 to 25 May 2014 while he was on electoral campaign leave for the 2014 elections to the European Parliament and from 1 July 2014 to 16 July 2014 after he took up his seat.^[8][9]

As European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, Barnier handled many important issues, such as the reform of the financial sector (40 pieces of legislation between 2010 and 2014), the banking union (starting with the Single Supervisory Mechanism) and the digital single market.^[10]

From 2015, Barnier served as unpaid Special Adviser on European Defence Policy to President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker.^[11][12]

On 27 July 2016, he was announced as the European Commission's chief negotiator with the United Kingdom over leaving the European Union, under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. Commenting on the appointment, Juncker said "I wanted an experienced politician for this difficult job."^[13] Barnier initially dealt with David Davis, a Eurosceptic, who resigned on 8 July 2018. He is currently in intensive productive negotiations with Dominic Rennie Raab.^[14][15]

Michel Barnier and Boyko Borisov at the 2011 EPP summit at Bouchout Castle, Meise