Michel Barnier: the most dangerous man in Europe?

By Bruno Waterfield Published: 10:00PM GMT twenty-seven February 2010

Comments 4 |

In the spotlight: Michel Barnier is conducting a appeal descent to convince that the EU is not out to stymie the City"s efficacy Photo: Reuters

The newly-appointed European Commissioner obliged for cleaning up Europe"s monetary services zone took up his pursuit customarily 3 weeks ago. When Michel Barnier"s appointment was announced, he faced criticism, the main beef looming to be that the former French apportion was some-more approaching to side with President Nicolas Sarkozy than he was with the leaders of London"s under-pressure monetary sector. The Frenchman was a threat.

Tomorrow, after putting his group together, he starts a appeal descent to win over British politicians and woo the City. He starts with a cooking hosted by Angela Knight, the challenging arch comparison manager of the British Bankers" Association, who is approaching to take a heading purpose in any Tory supervision that competence follow this year"s ubiquitous election.

Sarkozy "will make use of Michel Barnier for French interests" Sarkozy rebukes British in promissory note row GPs should throw half-day closures to appeal patients, says BMA G20 summit: Michelle Obama feted on initial central outing to Britain as First Lady Sorrell, the honeyed and green virtuoso Sarah Palin: Pointing a installed gun at the environment?

According to Brussels sources, she has already been won over by Mr Barnier, and the Commissioner"s aides are anticipating she will speak him up at a cooking celebration that includes Stephen Green, the HSBC chairman, and alternative tip bankers. On Tuesday, after a breakfast with sidestep supports and in isolation equity firms, Mr Barnier meets the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, for the second time, as well as Mervyn King, the Bank of England governor, Lord Myners, the City minister, and Lord Turner, the authority of the Financial Services Authority. He is additionally creation time to encounter George Osborne, the shade chancellor, after what has been described as a considerate assembly with Ken Clarke, the shade commercial operation secretary, in Brussels on Thursday. Vince Cable, the emissary personality of the Liberal Democrats, gets a little face time, too.

There is a conflict to be won for hearts and minds and that"s prior to the genuine quarrel starts over a inundate of European Union legislation directed at inhabitant regulators, banks, sidestep supports and in isolation equity firms. People were rattled when Mr Barnier was allocated to the EU"s plum mercantile job, whilst Britain got a, so far, ineffectual unfamiliar process post.

President Sarkozy, no crony to the "Anglo-Saxon capitalism" embodied by the City, could not curb his glee. "It"s the initial time in 50 years that France has had this role. The English are the big losers in this business," he said.

Syed Kamall, a Conservative MEP for London, is assured that Mr Barnier is not a puppet with his strings being pulled from the Elysee in Paris. "He is initial and inaugural a really useful politician, a dealmaker. He is some-more European than French," he said.

Mr Kamall is tender by Mr Barnier"s eagerness to speak to the industry. The MEP is the organiser of the sidestep account and in isolation equity breakfast with Mr Barnier on Mar 2.

"On the due regulations, he accepts that there has not been sufficient conference and wants to speak to the industry," he said. "I find him really true and amiable. You can lay down with him and sort things out. He answers questions and deals with issues."

Olivier Guersent, Mr Barnier"s "chef de cabinet", the Commissioner"s arch of staff and majority comparison domestic adviser, explains the objective. "Mr Barnier believes in intelligent regulation, facing the enticement to over-regulate but carrying a sufficient turn so the zone does not take risks that are unsuitable for adults and open budgets," he said.

"If we get it right, it will be a rival value on the tellurian level. People who wish to deposit income will cite to deposit it in an area where you have a decent turn of guarantees, that you don"t take systemic risks, than in an area where you competence have higher earnings but a majority larger risk of losing everything. If we get it right and have a concentration proceed with alternative economies, it will be a plus."

Another close help stressed that "getting it right" meant listening to the industry and that wide-ranging consultations were underneath way. "We have seen majority City players and one of the views you attend to from the big players is that we need law since if there is not a set extent afterwards a little will begin pulling the boundary again. Then others will have to follow since if they don"t they will not be competitive," he said.

Mr Barnier, distinct majority of his countrymen and majority alternative Commissioners, is not a believer of the thought that a singular European regulator is needed.

"You need to be close to the industry, not as well close, but close sufficient in sequence to effectively manipulate it. I don"t think you can manipulate the City from Frankfurt," pronounced the aide.

"But the demon is the detail. What are the powers you give to the European turn to safeguard consistency? There is, in the box of supervision, a series of diverging views. At the finish of the day, who has the last word? But in a complicated economy, controlling anything customarily on the basement of your own borders is increasingly impossible. You need to work with others. Nobody in London, with a monetary zone with tellurian reach, thinks that."

A focus, corroborated up by regulations, on giving "rights to shareholders rather than the state" is the Commissioner"s welfare to the wider issues. "Why can play take really critical decisions but ever referring to their shareholders? This is about marker of risks, stating on risks, remuneration, conflicts of interests. These beliefs appear to me to be sincerely Anglo-Saxon," pronounced the aide.

One French Commission official, drafting new monetary legislation, referred to that Paris and London are closer together than majority think.

"There is a bit of mental disorder in the UK about monetary services," she said. "People in the French monetary zone feel customarily the same approach as those in the City, and majority live in London. I don"t think it is right to speak in conditions of French contra Anglo-Saxon capitalism. We French have a bent to begin from grand beliefs and afterwards to not request them. The British are customarily some-more useful from the beginning. I don"t see such a big disproportion at the finish in genuine terms."

Other comparison EU officials, with change over Mr Barnier, hold the City is in denial. There are absolute Brussels polite servants prickly for a fight. "What do we attend to from industry, from sidestep supports and bankers? "We don"t need some-more regulation, the predicament is over". We are utterly certain it isn"t. It is as if zero had happened. Is that a convincing position? No one buys this," pronounced one high-ranking Commission official.

Mr Barnier, 59, initial got concerned in governing body as a immature Gaullist elderly 15. He initial came to inhabitant inflection in 1986 when he won Albertville"s bid to host the 1992 Winter Olympics in his dear Savoy.

Apart from his prior tenure in the Commission, as informal process arch from 1999 to 2004, Mr Barnier has regularly hold inaugurated bureau as the basement for ministerial posts, together with unfamiliar affairs, cultivation and environment. His customarily time out of office, after losing an election, he worked in the in isolation sector. His popular, and at times populist, hold has done enemies of the narques,those people prepared at the prestigious École Nationale d"Administration, who browbeat domestic hold up in France.

To majority in the French elite, Mr Barnier is "le drool des alpes", a taunt at his start in the plateau of Savoy and a anxiety to the 18th century Alpine hollow dwellers who suffered brain repairs caused by iodine deficiency.

These sneers are echoed by a little European officials, who courtesy Mr Barnier as a lightweight democrat compared to the brainy and intelligent technocrats who, it is claimed, take up the highly evolved heights of the French and European polite service.

"He is not famous for celebration of the mass some-more than the initial page outline of a dossier," sniffed one official. Mr Barnier, who dresses well and enjoys open appearances as customarily a veteran statesman can, has additionally drawn glow in Brussels for his affinity for the TV cameras. "He is so lovable that if he was an ice thickk cream he would eat himself," pronounced one staffer.

One co-worker strongly believes that whilst Mr Barnier is an classic Frenchman in coming and manner, his approved certification symbol him out, and slip him, to attend to the industry rather than Mr Sarkozy.

"Unusually for a French politician, Barnier is not fearful of carrying a functioning inner marketplace with in effect competition. Perhaps this is since he has regularly been elected. He can be degraded and he has experienced it. This creates him majority some-more open to people and argument. He will wish to win people over."