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.

LONDON — U.K. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds insisted he is in agreement with his boss Andy Burnham’s drive for closer European Union ties — a month after he warned re-litigating Brexit battles would cause “uncertainty” for business.

Reynolds told POLITICO at Labour conference that a return to the bloc’s customs union — one of the potential EU options floated by Burnham since then — would force “a whole range of alignment on regulatory issues” and warned that constant “constitutional questions” cause “a lot of uncertainty for business.”

But, challenged by Sky News Tuesday on whether Burnham was adding to that uncertainty by bringing the Europe issue to the top of the government agenda, Reynolds said: “I don’t disagree with the prime minister …

“For the here and now, I very strongly backed our manifesto position which is: can we improve our trade relationships with the rest of the world, which we’ve done.”

He added: “When we’re talking about the next ten years, you can’t avoid this question.
The uncertainty is there come what may. I want as least uncertainty as possible for British business.”

Burnham is due to attend a long-planned U.K.-EU summit in Brussels on November 20, where he will attempt to iron on issues with the existing Brexit settlement — although the summit is not expected to get into wider questions about the U.K.’s relationship with the bloc.

LONDON — Prime Minister Andy Burnham reiterated Monday his desire for the U.K. to rejoin the EU within his lifetime — but ruled out a move to reverse Brexit in the current parliament.

Asked by ITV’s Good Morning Britain Monday whether he wanted to rejoin the EU, Burnham said: “I’m going to be honest and say, in my lifetime, I would like to see that happen but I am not going to move ahead of the public.

“I am not going to dictate in terms of my own opinions here. You have to make sure that the public, the British public, are the bosses.”

At the ruling Labour Party’s conference last month, Burnham called for closer links with the EU.

He has yet to spell out precise details of the relationship he would seek — but the party’s 2024 election-winning manifesto under Keir Starmer ruled out rejoining the single market, customs union or accepting freedom of movement with the bloc.

Burnham said Monday that the promises of the 2016 referendum that took Britain out of the EU have not been delivered.

“We got a harder Brexit than was proposed in the referendum campaign,” he said. “It’s weakened our economy. It’s also weakened our control of immigration and that might surprise people.”

But he said: “I’m not proposing rejoining in this Parliament. We’re way, way away from that at this particular moment in time. What I am saying is we need to take some practical steps to make the arrangement work better than the arrangement we’ve got right now.”

The PM’s remarks come after he told the Sunday Times that accepting freedom of movement with the bloc should not be off the table in future negotiations.

A U.K.-EU summit is scheduled for next month, although that is set to focus tightly on technical tweaks to the existing relationship rather than addressing bigger questions of Britain’s future ties to the bloc.

Burnham’s decision to reignite debate in Britain about the EU has already provoked a bullish response from some of Brexit’s leading cheerleaders.

Speaking at a Westminster press conference Monday, Nigel Farage said rejoining the bloc would be “utterly moronic” and argued Brexiteers would win a referendum on reversing the result “very comfortably.”

“Listen, Brexit would not have happened if I had not been born — all right, simple as that,” the Reform UK leader said Monday. “Yes, there were some Johnny-Come-Latelies. They came in at five minutes to midnight. Am I up for the fight again? You bet your blooming life I am.”

Sam Blewett contributed to this report.