Former EU negotiator warns UK will not be able to pick and choose trade rules
Michel Barnier said EU member states would insist the UK adopt measures such as the free movement of people if the country wants closer trade alignment in future.
Mr Barnier, who was the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator between 2016 and 2021 – and briefly the French prime minister in 2024 – made the warning ahead of the EU-UK summit later this month.
The summit will be focused on breaking down post-Brexit trade barriers on food and farming, as well as working more closely on emissions trading, and making it easier for young people from the UK to work, live and study in Europe and vice versa.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said following the summit he wants the country to explore moving even closer to the EU.
Options including re-joining the bloc could be put to the public in future, the Prime Minister has suggested, though he has ruled out any major changes before an election.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Mr Barnier said further access to the EU would require Britain to accept its rules, warning there was not a “single market a la carte” from which the UK could pick and choose what elements it will adopt.
The “door is open” for the UK to re-join, he said, while adding that single market membership would require compliance with EU rules on the circulation of goods, services, capital and people, the so-called “four freedoms” of EU membership.
“There will be no possibility to have one freedom and not the other. The four freedoms are clearly the four conditions to be inside a single market,” Mr Barnier said.
In a further sign that Britain’s path back into Europe would present challenges, the Irish former premier who helped negotiate Brexit, Leo Varadkar, warned that Britain would be unlikely to get a £5bn annual rebate from the EU again if it rejoined.
Mr Varadkar, who helped secure the 2019 Brexit agreement with Boris Johnson, suggested the discount Margaret Thatcher had negotiated on paying into the EU’s central budget would not be on offer to the UK in future.
According to the Times newspaper, he said: “The rebate was at a particular point in time. Back in the 1980s, it was Thatcher who negotiated that. The formula for how you contribute to the European budget is straightforward.
“It’s a mathematical formula. It’s based on your GDP and then there are some direct elements as well. I think it would be very difficult to make the case for that.”
The EU-UK summit will take place on November 20 in Brussels.
Mr Barnier’s full BBC interview is set to be aired on Sunday.