Former Brexit negotiator Barnier: UK should get flexibility on euro and Schengen if it rejoins EU

The United Kingdom should be given the option to rejoin the European Union without adopting the single currency or joining the passport-free travel zone, the bloc’s former chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said Thursday. “The door is open,” said Barnier, who now serves as a French lawmaker, at POLITICO’s European Pulse Seminar. “If the British sovereignly choose to seek closer ties with [the EU], I don’t believe we can make it mandatory for them to adopt the euro, abandon the pound or rejoin Schengen.”

POLITICO reported last month that Brussels would be flexible on letting Britain stay out of the euro and the Schengen area if it ever applied to rejoin the EU. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said he wants to eventually see the U.K. rejoin, even suggesting the proposal could make it into Labour’s next election manifesto. Burnham has said that options could include membership of the single market or customs union, but also rejoining wholesale.

Barnier, however, said there can be “no cherry-picking” when it comes to joining the single market — a line he often used as Brexit negotiator. Barnier, who spent roughly three months as French prime minister in 2024 before falling to a vote of no confidence in parliament, also weighed in on next year’s presidential election in his home country. He called the current atmosphere in French politics “pre-insurrectionary” and said he regrets that two radical candidates who want to fundamentally reshape the EU, Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, are leading in the polls .

Though Le Pen has dropped her previous calls for France to leave the EU, Barnier said the far-right candidate’s public comments point “clearly towards the end of the European project as we have been building it for the past 40 years.” He also insisted that Le Pen should not be compared to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — whom Barnier described as “pragmatic” and “pro-business” — despite the ideological proximity between the two nationalists on some points.

Barnier added that Le Pen’s platform, “in some respects, is not very different from the economic platform of Mr. Mélenchon, who is on the far left.” Jon Stone contributed to reporting.