Aysu Biçer
23 June 2026•Update: 23 June 2026
The UK could return to the EU on a “short” timeline due to continued regulatory alignment, the bloc's former chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Tuesday.
Addressing the Brexit anniversary conference hosted by The UK in a Changing Europe in London, Barnier also suggested the UK could join a new European security and defense structure designed to deepen cooperation with non-EU European countries, including the UK and Norway.
“It is so important to be together, not to be a subcontractor to China or the US,” Barnier said, emphasizing the need for greater European economic security.
He declined to give a firm timeline for potential EU re-entry but said: “It could be short,” adding that any political decision by the UK to rejoin would likely take longer than the technical process of accession.
He reiterated long-standing EU positions on the terms of membership, warning there would be “no cherry-picking” for the UK.
“It could get back into the EU quickly but there would be 'no indivisibility of the four freedoms' of the single market which covers free movement of labour, capital, services and goods.
“We will take no risk about this,” he said.
However, Barnier also pointed to the possibility of a broader European framework for security cooperation involving countries outside the EU.
“I proposed creating a European Council for Security and Defense alongside the current institution, in the spirit of the 'coalition of the willing', working well and working efficiently to support Ukraine with British government and many others," he said.
"I think in that script it could be clever, useful to create what I call European Council for security of defence on the side of institution, open to some countries who play a key role outside the EU, not yet in the EU," he noted.
