Barnier set to quit

EU regions chief Michel Barnier is set to become French foreign minister following a Paris government reshuffle.

The cat was let out of the bag by Brussels chief Romano Prodi before an announcement from the French leader Jacques Chirac.

“Pedro Solbes will be responsible for managing the Spanish economy very soon, and very probably Michel Barnier will be responsible for French foreign policy,” Prodi told journalists.

"I will be sad to lose a magnificent colleague."

The Barnier appointment is expected to be retrospectively confirmed by Paris on Wednesday afternoon.

Prodi's slip comes as questions grow over the EU executive's will to live in the final months of its existence.

The commission's five term is up in November and EU chiefs have started to jump ship.

EU fiscal comissioner Pedro Solbes is off to Madrid in April to become Spanish deputy prime minister.

Greek employment chief Anna Diamantopoulou has already been replaced following an unsuccessful foray into national elections.

And EU culture commissioner Viviane Reding is set to stand in the June European elections.

Barnier's patience and ambition rewarded

Michel Barnier had already indicated that he would not leave Brussels for any modest portfolio in France.

He prefered to stay on in Brussels, with his eye on a higher profile post as vice-president of the commission.

His president Jacques Chirac must have heeded Barnier’s ambitions, luring him back home with nothing less than the foreign affairs role.

“It’s an offer one doesn’t turn down,” say sources close to the French commissioner.

The nomination, rumoured already for weeks both in Paris and Brussels, has not come as a great surprise. Barnier is close to Chirac who admires his political nous and competence.

The regional policy commissioner’s trip home will probably trigger a reorientation of France’s policy towards the EU.

A confirmed European at heart, Barnier has in private not held back in revealing his disdain for France’s approach to date, calling it “impenetrable.”

As the sensitive dossiers between Brussels and Paris have mounted up – Alstom, Bull, France, Telecom, Europe’s next seven-year spending plan, the European Constitution, budget deficits – Barnier has throughout deployed his influence to appeal for reason and moderation from his French political friends.

He should now, according to one French diplomat, “scale back” the French position on many of these issues and bestow Paris once more with “a coherent role as a motor” for Europe.

While de Villepin, who is leaving the foreign affairs post do take up his dream job at the head of the interior ministry, never quite invested himself in affairs European (“his ministry, it’s the world” noted one of his aides dryly) Barnier will bring to France his sound knowledge of the European machine.

As commissioner for institutional reform he was at the heart of negotiations over the draft constitution. It may even have been Barnier who encouraged Chirac to be less intransigent over some of the thorny questions that divided France and Poland during talks.

As a test of his European credentials in his new role, Brussels will be eyeing Barnier’s future take on the EU’s ‘financial perspectives’ spending plan with interest. As a commissioner he proposed an increase in regional policy spending, in the face of Paris demands to keep a lid on the budget.

Barrot approached for Brussels posting

To replace Barnier at the commission, the French government has approached Jacques Barrot, currently president of Jacque Chirac’s UMP party in the national assembly.

This centrist, who knows social affairs inside out, is highly regarded both by left and right in France.

As for the new French European affairs minister, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres is expected to step into the frame: a confirmed europhile who has already held the dossier for a few weeks in 2002 before becoming embroiled in a legal scandal over party finances.

The French courts served him a mere fine for his part in the irregularities.

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