Brexit task force leader Jonathan Faull to retire

The European Commission’s most senior Brit will leave after a 38-year career.

The European Commission’s most senior British official, Jonathan Faull, said Tuesday he will retire in January after a 38-year career in the institution that included a high-profile but unsuccessful attempt to keep his country in the EU.

Faull, 62, has held several top Commission jobs, including four different director-general posts since 2000. Most recently he was head of a special Commission task force on negotiating a package of reforms aimed at convincing U.K. voters to stay in the EU before Britain’s June referendum.

Since the U.K. vote to leave the EU, Faull has been a Commission staffer in transition. The Brexit task force he has headed officially ends this week. A new team headed by former French commissioner Michel Barnier starts next Monday and will be in charge of leading the Commission’s Brexit negotiations. Several of Faull’s staff have migrated to Barnier’s team.

“All good things come to an end,” Faull told POLITICO. “This has been my professional home for 38 years but I knew this change had to come. It’s part of growing up, and not growing old. There are things I still want to do.”

Until his retirement, Faull will be on assignment with the Commission’s Secretariat General, helping to set up a European Solidarity Corps — a youth volunteer initiative launched by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker that will focus on humanitarian and employment aid.

Faull was 24 when he started in the Commission in 1978 in the now defunct customs union department. He has led the Commission’s important directorates-general on justice and home affairs and financial services. He was also the chief spokesman for the European Commission from 1999-2003.

While he wants to continue to work, Faull said he has not lined up another position. He has also not decided whether he will return to the U.K., since his wife is French.

As one of the most senior British EU officials in Brussels, Faull has been the de facto leader advocating for the rights of British Eurocrats after Brexit. Another senior Brit, former DG Connect Director-General Robert Madelin, announced he will retire from the Commission on October 1.