Former European Union Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier told Euronews that it is up to the United Kingdom to decide whether it would want to rejoin the bloc, but that Brussels has made its conditions clear.
His comments come ten years after the UK voted to leave the EU by 52% to 48%, and at a time when polling shows a clear majority of the British public, across party lines, views doing so as a mistake.
"Brexit decided by a sovereign vote 10 years ago is done, but the future is open, and the door is open," Barnier, a prominent centre-right politician who was Prime Minister of France from September to December 2024, said on Euronews' programme 12 Minutes With.
He argued that the UK government and political parties know what the conditions for rejoining are, noting that it should be clear to London that it "cannot have its cake and eat it" when it comes to negotiating its future relationship with Brussels.
Barnier, who referred to Brexit as a lose-lose game, explained that it would, for example, be possible for the UK to join the single market — the bloc's borderless economic area — without joining the EU, as Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway have done.
