Читать книгу My Secret Brexit Diary - Michel Barnier - Страница 29

The foundation created by Jacques Delors celebrates its twentieth anniversary today! And so it is time for us to speak about ‘Notre Europe’ – an institute chaired by my friend Enrico Letta, former Prime Minister of Italy, and managed with great determination by a young Savoyard, Yves Bertoncini.

In his speech, Jean-Claude Juncker acknowledges that ‘the European Union must be ambitious on big projects and more modest on small matters’. Which is another way of saying that the lessons of Brexit are not just there for British citizens to draw from. And to be sure, Europe and Brussels have produced too many laws and regulations over the past thirty years, constraining citizens, consumers and businesses, and placing onerous obligations on their daily lives.

Yesterday, President François Hollande had also referred to the British decision, but in a rather more prickly tone: ‘There must be a threat, there must be a risk, and there must be a price’ for leaving the EU, he warned.

That same evening, in Savoie, in the pretty village of Domessin where my assistant Barthélemy is a town councillor, I honour a very old promise made to the mayor Gilbert Guigue to lead a public debate on Europe. The room is packed: three hundred people have sacrificed their evening to discuss Europe – and they say that no one is interested! I will most definitely make sure to take the time to talk with citizens, however heavy the workload of my new mission.