French ex-commissioner to lead:

Horse Haldalgo, representing life-saving US Marine horse Sergeant Reckless who served with the US Marine Corps during the Korean War, is awarded with the PDSA Dickin Medal beside Sergeant Mark Gostling (on top), and Lieutenant Colonel Michael Skaggs, hidden, in London on July 27. Reckless, who survived one of the bloodiest battles in modern military history, has today been awarded the PDSA Dickin Medal ‘known as the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross’ for her bravery and devotion to duty during

A French politician who introduced a swathe of European financial regulation after the financial crisis was named on Wednesday to represent Brussels in negotiations on Britain’s exit from the European Union, drawing a cool response in London.

European Commission President JeanClaude Juncker selected Michel Barnier, a former EU commissioner and centre-right French foreign and agriculture minister, in a choice that may antagonise Britain’s eurosceptic Conservatives.

In London, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May said Britain looked forward to working “with representatives from the member states, the Council and the Commission to ensure an orderly departure of the UK from the EU”.

But it did not mention Barnier by name. Initial British media reaction was hostile.

“Hard to think of a more anti-British figure. Declaration of war,” Tom Newton Dunn, political editor of the pro-Brexit Sun newspaper, said on Twitter.

London’s Evening Standard daily branded Barnier the “scourge of the City” — the financial district of the British capital. However, a former British Europe minister, Denis MacShane of the pro-European opposition Labour party, said Barnier was “pro-Brit but also proEU”, and had the experience to understand that key decisions on future ties would be taken in Berlin, Paris and other national capitals rather than by anyone in Brussels.

Barnier will take up his post on Oct 1, the EU executive said in a statement. He will report directly to Juncker and have the rank of a director-general of a Commission department, with all necessary resources at his disposal.

Barnier, 65, was a commissioner from 2010 to 2014, in charge of internal market and services. He was involved in reforms of financial services and in the establishment of a European banking union with a single supervisor for euro zone banks.

Juncker said Barnier was a skilled negotiator with rich experience in major policy areas and an extensive network of contacts in the capitals of EU member states.

“I wanted an experienced politician for this difficult job,” Juncker said in the statement. “I am sure that he will live up to this new challenge and help us to develop a new partnership with the United Kingdom after it will have left the European Union.”

May has said she does not expect to trigger the EU treaty’s Article 50 exit clause before the end of this year. She has taken soundings on initial visits to Berlin, Paris and Rome and spoken by telephone with the heads of EU institutions. But her government has yet to determine what kind of relationship it wants with the bloc after it withdraws.

Opinions among leading Conservatives range from a simple free trade agreement to as complete an access to the EU’s single market as possible, given the British electorate’s determination to control migration from EU countries. EU partners say freedom of movement of workers is a pivotal condition for market access.

It is also unclear who will lead the exit negotiations on the British side, although veteran Conservative eurosceptic David Davis, was appointed “Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union” in May’s cabinet.

Michael McKee, a financial services lawyer at DLA Piper in London, told Reuters that Barnier would have a good grasp of the technical and political issues associated with the single market and financial services. (AFP)

May the Korean war 1950 until 1953. A serving British Army horse stood in for the late Reckless at the ceremony. The chestnut Mongolian mare served as an ammunitions carrier for the marines’ anti-tank division. She made repeated strips to supply ammunition and retrieve wounded troops under heavy bombardment during the battle for Outpost Vegas in March 1953. After the war, Reckless retired to the United States

and died in 1968 at age 20. She was nominated by a historian who wrote a biography about her. (AP)

of the agenda Thursday when new British Prime Minister Theresa May heads to Warsaw for talks.

At some 790,000, Poles make up by far the largest community of some three million European Union migrants living in the United Kingdom.

“We will probably take up questions concerning the situation of Poles currently living in Great Britain, this being the most important thing for us in the context of Brexit,” Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo told reporters on Tuesday.

“But we are also going to discuss bilateral cooperation since Great Britain is a major and strategic partner for Poland,” Szydlo added.

A cursory statement from Szydlo’s office did not reveal either exactly when or where the pair would be meeting or give any further indication of May’s agenda while in Poland. (AFP)

2 held in murder probe:

Two men have been arrested in connection with the murder of Denis Donaldson, a former British secret service agent shot dead in 2006, Irish police said on Wednesday.

Donaldson was a former senior party official in Sinn Fein, formerly the political wing of the IRA, who in the months before his murder was outed as having spent 20 years spying on the movement for British intelligence.

Investigators did not name those arrested but said one is in his 40s and the other in his 70s. They were remanded in custody on Wednesday and can be held for up to 72 hours, police said.

Detectives appealed for anyone with information about the case to come forward.

“Both men were arrested in the Donegal area on July 26, 2016, and are currently being detained at Letterkenny police station,” police told AFP by email.

Donaldson’s body was found in April 2006 in the home where he lived alone, without water or electricity, in the rural village of Glenties in north west Ireland. (AFP)