Martin Selmayr is taking over the Brexit negotiations – and that's bad news for Britain

It’s no coincidence that the EU had already prepared a statement on Monday that ruled out any Brexit renegotiation, even before the ‘Brady amendment’, which requested the replacement of the backstop within the withdrawal agreement had been voted on. One of the reasons why, is that a certain Martin Selmayr is now very much sitting in the EU’s driving seat.

A lot of media attention in the UK is often spent on whatever the EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and his team are saying, but I am hearing in Brussels that when Theresa May’s top Brexit advisor Olly Robbins visits EU institutions, he now meets Martin Selmayr, the controversial Secretary-General of the European Commission.

Some member states are apparently uncomfortable about his growing influence, and they should be, because Selmayr has a reputation for behaving like a bull in a China shop. With the risk of no deal looming, one can only wonder why Ireland, the Benelux, Germany and France – who are risking a lot of damage, for which they are insufficiently prepared – tolerate a hardliner in charge who’s making this prospect more likely.

Until recently, Selmayr served as European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s chief of staff. His recent appointment to the top levels of the European Commission, bypassing seasoned eurocrats, ‘could be viewed as a coup-like action’, according to the European Parliament, and did ‘not follow EU law or the Commission’s own rules’ according to the European Ombudsman. The European Parliament has stopped short of questioning the appointment, perhaps fearing the troublesome ways its own top officials are appointed would be reassessed. More importantly, however, Jean-Claude Juncker had linked his own fate with that of Selmayr and quite aggressively forced his EU Commissioners to toe the line. Selmayr’s appointment raises serious questions as to how Jean-Claude Juncker’s rumoured condition may have opened the door for people like Selmayr to occupy positions of power that should never be reserved for mandarins like him.