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Brexit Chief Barnier Continues Unofficial Push for Top EU Job

Brexit Chief Barnier Continues Unofficial Push for Top EU Job

(Bloomberg) --

With British politics in turmoil, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator now has the free time to pursue tasks unrelated to the U.K.’s withdrawal, such as campaigning to be the next president of the bloc’s executive arm, perhaps.

Michel Barnier, the Frenchman who led the EU’s work on the Brexit deal that Prime Minister Theresa May has until now failed to get through Parliament and ultimately led to her downfall, was on Thursday banging a different drum in Helsinki.

The Finnish capital was just the latest stop, which has seen Barnier glad-handing with government chiefs and making speeches that have gradually evolved from sending messages to the U.K. about the state of negotiations, to making some unsubtle suggestions that he’d make a good European Commission president, one of the bloc’s most powerful jobs.

“The future of Europe is much more important than Brexit,” Barnier told the audience as he shifted away from well-rehearsed arguments about the U.K. negotiations to wider EU challenges.

Barnier didn’t stand against Germany’s Manfred Weber to be the center-right’s top choice for next commission president, but he isn’t out of the running. As EU leaders prepare to discuss appointments at a summit later this month, they’ve made it clear they’re all still up for grabs. And because of the opaque way some of the horse-trading around the jobs is conducted, he doesn’t even have to declare he’s interested.

Despite a wide-ranging speech, which took in issues such as climate change, artificial intelligence, defense-spending and migration, Barnier refused the temptation to confirm he wants the top job.

“For the moment I’m focused on Brexit,” he told a questioner after his speech. “100% on Brexit.”

Still, he found time in his speech to talk about the threat to bees, unrest in the Balkans, the concept of European identity, the aging society, education and military equipment.

And just in case the German government and other northern European countries might think he’s a bit flaky on economics, he had a message on that too.

“I’m not protectionist,” he said. “Despite the fact that I’m French.”

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To contact the reporters on this story: Kati Pohjanpalo in Helsinki at kpohjanpalo@bloomberg.net;Ian Wishart in Brussels at iwishart@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Richard Bravo, Nikos Chrysoloras

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